Like many in the office, I suspect, I have spent nearly the entire evening finding out just how awesome an awesome DVD release can be. Another additional evening or two will be required to finish the material. (Although I admit I am tempted to stay up even later than I already have because there's so much cool stuff I haven't even looked at yet!)

(This brings me to an offtopic thought that someone mentioned today: Technically, my movielog generally only covers a film itself, and not dvd extras. This is largely because when the movielog began, DVDs, not to mention extra features, were barely a glimmer in the eye of a poor student moviephile. But nowadays, with so many great releases coming out with tons of extras, it almost becomes an omission to not talk about them. So I include optional special feature comments at will. Although the rating stars themselves should theoretically only reflect the quality of the movie itself, sometimes my perception is inevitably influenced after learning additional information.)

The first thing I did when I arrived home with this one was to stick in Disc 2. It is not my customary pattern to view extras before running the main feature, but this time I did because (a) I was really curious to see the behind the scenes stuff, and (b) I was patiently waiting for other family members who wanted to see it, and they don't consider viewing the extra features to be of any importance (those poor souls never know what they're missing, especially in this case).

I started with the top item on the menu, reviewing all the theatrical trailers, teasers, and tv spots. Of course, this effectively served to fully whet my appetite for the generous portions to come.

I skipped the deleted scenes stuff (which I want to watch very soon too), and went straight to documentary fun.

Wow. Straight, clean, unnarrated documentary footage from the bowels of the Lucasfilm production facilities, showing inside bits from many areas and departments through all the phases of film making. Lots of it. The dozen web documentary segments have even more. There's at least a couple hours gone by right there.

Watching made me realize even more: A project such as this is an amazing accomplishment. There was a tremendous amount of love poured into this film, in so many different ways, and from so many different sources. Sometimes, it is staggering to think about the lengths people to go to in order to create 2 hours of entertainment for the world to enjoy. Maybe I'm just pontificating over the obvious, but sometimes, it really does blow me away.

The feature itself: Well, I loved this movie when it came out, and that hasn't changed. Yes, that includes Jar Jar. People give him such a hard time, but I would say his antics are fully in keeping with the Star Wars tradition. Comic relief is good sometimes. It's funny. Laugh.

The story is as engrossing as ever, especially since it's been a couple years since I last saw it. Now I just want to see episode 2. The next chapter. Plleeeaaazee!

I would dare to go so far as to say that the 5.1 audio mix on this movie is better than any other DVD I have watched. It puts you right in the middle of the action. The pod race. The space battles. The sword fights. All of it. During the end credits, I just sat and soaked in the Duel of the Fates reprise, as the music poured in from every side.

Regardless of what critics and others said, this is a beautiful and well done movie.

[Totally, totally offtopic to the subject, but I don't feel like opening up an entire rambling just to say this one thing: Confirmation received today. Lease approved. I move in Saturday. Yeeeaaah!]