Wonder Woman is already available on Digital HD, but on Tuesday, September 19th, the Blu-ray will be available. It comes with a bonus scene, a deleted scene, some extended scenes, and lots more. The Blu-ray features superior image and audio quality over the Digital HD version, as well as over two hours of special features. I’m going to talk about them all in my review to give you an idea of what to expect.
Video and Audio
The picture quality of Wonder Woman is fantastic. Everything looks crisp and detailed on my 1080p TV. I watched the Digital HD version last month, and one of the benefits of buying the Blu-ray is for the better picture quality. Digital is convenient, but nothing beats the quality of a physical disc.
Wonder Woman sounds great as well. I have a 5.1 surround sound system, but the Blu-ray supports full 7.1 if you have the right equipment to take advantage of it.
And as a bonus, as soon as you pop in the Blu-ray the Justice League trailer starts playing. It was really cool to see it in full 1080p with surround sound for the first time. That’s an experience that you just can’t get on a compressed YouTube video.
Special Features
Epilogue: Etta’s Mission
The highly promoted “bonus scene” is just over two and a half minutes long and features Etta Candy getting the boys back together to discuss a secret mission that involves a Mother Box. It’s a nice little tease and set up for Justice League, and Etta Candy gets to kick some butt!
Crafting the Wonder
This section covers how everyone brought the movie together. From deciding on an origin story, to getting all of the costumes, lighting, and sets just right. We hear from people like Patty Jenkins, Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Zack Snyder, Geoff Johns, and more.
My favorite part was when they covered the various sets for the movie. Danny Huston said that the sets were so detailed that the desk drawers had documents and things inside them. That’s incredible, especially since they’d never get any screen time.
Another interesting detail: the smoke in the No Man’s Land scene was actually blue in real life. Jenkins thought that it would look better on camera that way and look better against the various costumes.
A Director’s Vision
The section covers Patty Jenkins’ vision for the movie and how they created the biggest moments, including “Themyscira: The Hidden Island”, “Beach Battle”, “A Photograph Through Time”, “Diana in the Modern World”, and “Wonder Woman at War”.
Each part is about five minutes long. My favorite was “Themyscira: The Hidden Island”. Patty Jenkins admitted that creating Themyscira was the hardest part of working on the movie. How do you create paradise? It was really cool to see all of the real locations that were used, and how everything came together.
A very close second would be the “Beach Battle”. Seeing all of the work that goes into creating a big scene like that was awesome. Every section here was great though. This kind of content is my favorite part about a Blu-ray’s special features.
Warriors of Wonder Woman
This section showed all of the Amazons working out and getting into shape for the movie. There was five months of pre-production and the women went through extensive weight training, as well as martial arts.
The women were trained by Mark Twight, the same trainer that worked with actors for Zack Snyder’s 300, Man of Steel, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Most of the women weren’t even full time actors. Many were elite athletes in various sports, and one woman was a police officer.
The Trinity
This section features the filmmakers and comic book creators exploring Wonder Woman’s comic book origins, and how she compares and differs to Batman and Superman.
This runs 16 minutes long and is a great “history lesson” for fans who may only know Wonder Woman from the Lynda Carter show and the recent movies. It really gives you a great sense of who the character is and where she came from.
The Wonder Behind the Camera
This section focuses on all of the women who helped make the movie. It starts with the most obvious one: director Patty Jenkins.
A group of young girls who want to work in the movie industry when they grow up were invited to the set to see how the movie was made. We get to see a bit of what must haven been the coolest “field trip” they’ve ever attended.
Next Aline Bonetto talks about being the production designer on the movie. Chris Pine echos something I mentioned earlier in this review and talks about just how detailed each set was.
Lindy Hemming is the costume designer and talks about her work on the movie. If her name sounds familiar, it’s because she worked on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy too.
Finding the Wonder Woman Within
Feel the power of Wonder Woman as award-winning poets and inspiring public figures reveal the impact and importance of DC’s greatest heroine.
This was my least favorite special feature, mostly because it had more to do with people talking about the qualities that Wonder Woman stands for, rather than providing any interesting behind-the-scenes details about how the movie was made.
Extended Scenes
There are extended scenes, an alternative scene, and even a deleted scene.
The extended scenes run for about a minute, but the longest is an alternative take on the boat scene with Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. It features a lot of the dialogue that made the final cut of the movie, but there are some new lines here too. The entire scene plays out differently, and in the end, I think they made the right choice using the version they chose for the movie.
The deleted scene features Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor, and their team having a quick chat as they walk to the No Man’s Land battle scene. Patty Jenkins said they changed this scene during reshoots because she wanted Wonder Woman to see more of the horrors of war.
Blooper Reel
There are five minutes of bloopers and outtakes. I always love seeing these on Blu-rays and it’s no different here. Gal Gadot accounts for most of the laughs, but everyone slipped up at some point to provide some humor. My favorite was when Chris Pine was struggling to mount a horse.
Wrap Up
Most of you probably already bought the Digital HD version of Wonder Woman in order to watch it at home a few weeks before the release of the Blu-ray. I would still recommend you pick up a physical copy as well. You’ll get better video and audio quality, and over two hours of entertaining specials features filled with cool behind-the-scenes footage and interesting details.
Wonder Woman is available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be released on Tuesday, September 19th. Warner Bros. provided me with an early copy for this review.
