Fans who sit down to watch Spider-Man: Far From Home on Blu-ray may encounter a new surprise. After the film’s final, Nick Fury-centric end credits tag, things continue. Really. The disc just quietly just rolls from the movie into the first of many extra features, but anyone who isn’t paying attention may be very confused when new footage comes on and continues for more than an hour.
Thankfully, the Spider-Man: Far From Home Blu-ray will make you want to pay attention. In addition to the obviously excellent Spider-Man movie, there’s almost an hour and a half of bonus features that run the gamut from stupid and superfluous to fascinating and essential.
Collectively, they touch on lots of details that will make Far From Home fans appreciate the Marvel/Sony film even more.
The main event of the features is called “Peter’s To-Do List,” and it’s the three-plus minute “short film” that starts immediately after the credits of the main movie (all of these are also just accessible from the main menu too).
The “short film” really isn’t a short film though. It’s a sequence of scenes that were deleted, as per director Jon Watts, because the movie was too slow at the beginning. And while the semantics describing the scene aren’t quite right, the scene on its own is enjoyable, showing Peter do a few random things like sell He-Man and Thundercats (but not Star Wars) action figures to get money for his trip. That scene would have felt right at home in the six minutes of deleted and alternate scenes that are also on the disc.
There’s another that explains what the students and teachers were doing at the rest stop where Peter gets the Night Monkey suit, more of Jake Gyllenhaal preparing his evil plans, a nice moment with Aunt May from the very end of the film, lots more Flash Thompson, and — best of all — footage showing the high school morning hosts, Betty and Jason, “blip” and return live on their show five years later. It doesn’t make sense the way the film is edited now but it’s a fun addition.
Speaking of fun, there are over three and a half minutes of outtakes and bloopers. These are always entertaining but the highlight here is just seeing the wild chemistry and budding friendship between Tom Holland and Jake Gyllenhaal. The two make each other laugh a lot and it’s excellent to watch. Here’s a taste:
Maybe the weirdest thing on the entire release is a five-minute piece called “Teacher’s Travel Tips.” Edited and made like a high school student film, this odd clip mostly features J.B. Smoove and Martin Starr improvising a bunch of teacher stuff intercut with bad graphics. It’s funny but mostly just really, really awkward.
At this point, you may think this is already a pretty good selection of special features. And it is. But we haven’t gotten to the best stuff yet.
In addition to all of that, there are also 11 featurettes, each ranging from a minute and a half to about eight minutes, exploring all aspects of Far From Home, from its story, to its casting, the production, and more.
There are segments on the stunts (which were way more practical than you’d imagine), all the new Spider-Man costumes, the location shooting, all the film’s Easter eggs (which is less exciting than it sounds, unfortunately), Mysterio, Aunt May and more.
Interviews with Holland, Watts, Gyllenhaal, Samuel L. Jackson, basically everyone in the film, give all of these videos a real authority and show the high level of craftsmanship and passion that went into the movie. Then, just to put a cherry on top, there’s a feature where you can watch the film’s major action sequences in their original pre-viz version in a split-screen with the final film. Super cool stuff.
Our favourite piece, though, is a segment called “The Ginter Riva Effect.” This short but sweet featurette is about the fact Peter Billingsley came back to reprise his role from Iron Man (that of William Ginter Riva) in Far From Home, and that the production reshot sequences from the first Iron Man for the montage. That was not something we expected or knew about, even with all that’s been written about the film.
Finally, if you made it through all that, obviously you’re a Spider-Man fan. So Sony also added an almost 12-minute feature called “The Brothers Trust.” The Brothers’ Trust is an organisation set up by Tom Holland’s family (which includes himself and his three brothers) to raise awareness and money for worthy charities. So this video, which is not Spider-Man specific but is still related and touching, adds a little heart to the release.
All in all, it’ll take you around an hour and a half to get through all the Spider-Man: Far From Home special features, and during that time you’re going to learn a lot about what went into making the movie. That, plus the awesome movie itself, make Far From Home a more than worthy addition to your home theatre collection.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is available on digital and Blu-ray on October 23.