By John Corrado

Arriving after years of feverish anticipation, and becoming the highest grossing film of last year, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is finally coming to Blu-ray this week, and the set comes highly recommended for fans.  The film itself is a lot of fun, minor narrative faults aside, and does a solid job of continuing this classic saga while providing a thoroughly satisfying piece of blockbuster entertainment.  For more, my full review can be found right here.

The Blu-ray comes with a whole extra disc devoted entirely to bonus features, the most notable of which is a 69 minute documentary entitled Secrets of The Force Awakens: A Cinematic Journey, which offers an engaging and highly enjoyable look behind the scenes, from story conception to casting and actual production.

This is further supplemented by six featurettes that delve deeper into different aspects behind the film, including a delightful look at how they built BB-8, a tour of the impressive set that was constructed for the visually arresting snowy landscape of the final lightsaber battle, and a closer look at how they seamlessly blended both practical and digital effects.  The disc is rounded out by several brief deleted scenes, which don’t really add much to the story, but are still interesting to see what little moments got cut.  There’s also a brief featurette on the Force for Change initiative.

These bonus features all do an excellent job of giving us an even greater appreciation for the amount of artists and creators that came together to make Star Wars: The Force Awakens as good as it was, and fans should definitely pick up a copy of the Blu-ray and give them a watch after revisiting the film.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is 136 minutes and rated PG.