Star Wars: The Last Jedi is coming to home video in digital and physical formats — including 4K ultra HD, a first for the Star Wars franchise — starting in mid-March, Lucasfilm and Disney announced today.
[Note: If you haven’t seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi yet, maybe don’t watch the trailer above, which contains a few spoilery shots.]
Although the first 4K Blu-ray Disc movies arrived in early 2016, Disney was slow to adopt the format. Neither 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens nor 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — nor the original or prequel trilogies — is currently available in 4K, not even digitally. Disney did not release a movie on 4K Blu-ray until Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in August 2017.
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In addition to 4K resolution, The Last Jedi’s home video releases will offer support for Dolby Atmos audio as well as high dynamic range (HDR) color via Dolby Vision. That means The Last Jedi will be Disney’s first 4K Blu-ray title to support both of those high-fidelity technologies, according to a news release from Lucasfilm and Disney. The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson said on Twitter that he and the film’s director of photography, Steve Yedlin, personally oversaw the HDR pass.
The Last Jedi on home video will come packed with plenty of bonus features, led by a feature-length documentary called The Director and the Jedi that focuses on Johnson. One of the featurettes, “Balance of the Force,” will “explore the mythology of the Force and why Rian Johnson chose to interpret its role in such a unique way,” which may provide explanations for some of the more inexplicable sequences in the film. There will also be 14 deleted scenes, along with an introduction and commentary from Johnson; The Digital Bits reports that the sequences will total 20-30 minutes of cut footage. In addition, Johnson recorded full audio commentary for the film.
As always, the digital version of the film will arrive first, hitting Movies Anywhere on March 13. (Movies Anywhere is a video service backed by multiple Hollywood studios, including Disney, that aggregates customers’ virtual movie collections from across four sellers: Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu.) It’s unclear how many digital stores will offer The Last Jedi in 4K. While those four providers and others are taking pre-orders, only Vudu’s listing explicitly mentions a UHD version, which costs $24.99.
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The DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray versions of The Last Jedi will be released two weeks later, on March 27. The Blu-ray release, known as the Multi-Screen Edition, comes with Blu-ray and digital copies of the film. The UHD Blu-ray release, called the Ultimate Collector’s Edition, includes 4K and standard Blu-ray discs as well as a digital copy.
Both Best Buy and Target will sell their own exclusive versions of The Last Jedi in North America. Best Buy will offer Steelbook cases for both the Blu-ray ($29.99) and 4K Blu-ray ($34.99) releases; the Blu-ray package includes a DVD copy in addition to the Blu-ray and digital versions. Target’s Blu-ray set ($27.99) comes with a DVD copy as well, along with a 40-page booklet about the film and an exclusive featurette called “Meet the Porgs.” For images of the retailers’ packages, check out the Star Wars website.
Until March rolls around, you can watch the trailer for the next entry in the franchise, Solo: A Star Wars Story, which will hit theaters on May 25. And if you’re not interested in buying or renting The Last Jedi, you’ll eventually be able to watch it on Netflix as part of Disney’s expiring deal with the streaming service.
