Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker brought the epic Skywalker Saga to a final conclusion that will be talked about for years to come. For fans who want to dive into the movie and examine it frame-by-frame, that time will come sooner than you might think, as today it was revealed that The Rise of Skywalker is set for a Digital release on March 17, followed by the physical Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K release on March 31 and now we know what else we'll be getting when the movie comes home.
The announcement was fairly surprising because it means that The Rise of Skywalker will see a digital release less than three full months after its theatrical release date, which is a pretty quick turnaround for a movie that made $1 billion and is still showing in some theaters nationwide. One wonders if this might become the norm for Disney. We're already seeing movies from the summer of 2019 put on Disney+, about seven months after initial release. If that gap holds for Skywalker, we should see it hit the streaming service around July. Releasing the movie on Digital and physical media earlier gives the film a longer period to be successful and sell copies before it arrives on Disney+.
Special features are always a great way to dive into a movie deeply and The Rise of Skywalker will be no exception. A number of featurettes will accompany the movie on Digital and Blu-ray, including a pair of pieces dealing with the desert world of Pasaana. Pasaana Pursuit: Creating the Speeder Chase will take viewers through the creation of the desert speeder chase sequence, while Aliens in the Desert will show off the complexity of creating all of the creatures found on the desert world.
Star Wars is always praised when it comes to the franchise's creature design, and a pair of featureless will deal with this. Cast of Creatures will be a general look at the various creations built for The Rise of Skywalker via puppetry, prosthetics, makeup and digital effects, while D-O: Key to the Past will specifically focus on the franchise's newest droid.
Diving even deeper into the detail of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, one featurette will focus on a very specific scene, the return of Warwick Davis to his Return of the Jedi role of Wicket the Ewok, in a cameo that included Davis' son Harrison, in the appropriately titled Warwick & Son.
The main bonus feature attached to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, however, will be a feature length documentary look at the making of The Rise of Skywalker, titled The Skywalker Legacy.
There will also be one additional bonus feature that will be exclusive to those that purchase the film digitally, and might be a very good reason to own the movie that way. The Maestro’s Finale will focus on John Williams, the composer of the music for all nine films.
Of course, now that we have a list of what we will be getting with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker's home media release, it means we also know what we won't be getting. There's no mention of deleted scenes or looks at early storyboards, so any hope of seeing how the movie evolved won't be there, unless those things happen to be part of the larger documentary.
Still, there's plenty here for the serious Star Wars fan. Alongside the physical release date, for Rise of Skywalker, Lucasfilm will also release every other Star Wars film in 4K for the first time.
