After breaking most box office records under the sun, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is now available to buy digitally, and it comes to Blu-ray and DVD on April 5. It's packed with special features that any big Star Wars fan will love devouring.
It's packed with footage of moments like Harrison Ford's final day on set, John Williams discussing the creation of new theme music, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega talking about their first days on set and so much more, making it an easy purchase for anyone who's already counting down until the release of Star Wars: Episode VIII.
The deleted scenes are (mostly) nothing to write home about, but everything we get behind-the-scenes is worth your time.
But if you just want some highlights, here are some of the more interesting things we learned from the special features included with The Force Awakens.
Harrison Ford cares a lot about toggle switches on his ship
In the buildup to the release of The Force Awakens, there was a narrative floating around that Harrison Ford was tired of the Star Wars franchise and just wanted to get it over with. It was known that Ford had argued that Han Solo should have been killed off in Return of the Jedi, and some people translated that to mean, "He doesn't care about the movies anymore."
But Harrison Ford cares. He cares a lot.
In fact, when one of the Force Awakens production designers happened to bump into Ford in a grocery store and said that they were building the Millennium Falcon at that moment, Ford's response was, "The toggle switches."
Turns out that in the original Star Wars trilogy, cheap parts were used in order to keep costs down. The toggle switches on the Falcon were broken and didn't have any springs on them, so if you waited long enough after flipping a switch, that switch would revert back to its original position.
"No budget for springs," Ford says in an interview. So he asked, "Can you put springs in the switches this time? And they said, 'Yeah, boss, we've got the budget for that.'"
Mark Hamill narrated during the table read
Remember back in 2014 when that cast for Episode VII was announced, and we got our first photo of all of them in a room together? Looking back, it's funny that Mark Hamill is there, considering the occasion is the first table read of the script.
After all, Hamill doesn't have a single line. He's barely in the movie at all.
As it turns out, though, he had a very important role: He read all of the non-dialogue bits of the script, including the opening crawl of the movie.
You don't get to watch the entire thing (which bums me out, honestly. I'd listen to it all like an audio book), but you do get to hear Hamill say, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," and you might just get chills.
There are a lot of different BB-8s
BB-8 was easily one of the most beloved parts of The Force Awakens, and for good reason. He's an adorable droid with a lovable personality that's a worthy little brother to R2-D2 and C-3PO (even Threepio's actor, Anthony Daniels, says so).
But apparently you can't just build one BB-8 unit call it a day. Different versions of BB-8 served different purposes on set.
You've got your fully motorized droid that can roll around on its own (piloted by someone with a remote control, at least). You've got a "wiggler" droid that is mostly stationary but can wiggle around in place. You've got a more puppet-like BB-8 that a puppeteer in a green suit physically pushes around the set to get him from place to place. And you've got a much lighter BB-8 that the actors can pick up and carry if needed.
If you ask me, being in a room full of BB-8s doesn't sound too bad. I love that little dude.
The snowy lightsaber battle was filmed on a set, not location
J.J. Abrams was a big supporter of using practical effects and real locations for The Force Awakens whenever possible. So when you watch the climactic lightsaber battle between Rey and Kylo Ren, which takes place in a snowy forest, you probably expect that it was filmed on location in an actual forest.
But it wasn't. The production team discussed the possibility of using a real location, but there were problems with that plan, including the limited number of nighttime hours needed to shoot the scene in question.
So they built a forest. On a stage. With a 360 degree painted backdrop of trees and 750 boxes of fake snow. Their first test was so convincing that, when shown photographs, Abrams didn't realize it was a set at all.
Poe Dameron was going to die
In the original script for Episode VII, Poe Dameron was going to die relatively early in the film. But Oscar Isaac, who plays Poe in the movie, had a problem with that.
“[Poe dying] was the script that Oscar saw," Abrams says. "And one of his issues, wanting to do this movie, is that he had made like four movies in which he died early on. And he was sick of dying early on.”
So Abrams buckled, and they found a way to keep Poe alive throughout the movie rather than killing him off. Thanks, Oscar Isaac!
The lightsaber props actually glow
We're using to the magic of lightsabers fading away a little bit when watching behind-the-scenes features. Historically, the sabers have just been colored sticks -- not much more exciting than Star Wars toys you can buy at Target.
But the lightsaber props in The Force Awakens? They glow. And sometimes they flash. And it looks awesome.
Abrams made sure there were women in some Stormtrooper outfits
Aside from Finn, none of the Stormtroopers in The Force Awakens take off their helmets. Most don't even speak. This isn't any different from previous movies in the series -- Stormtroopers are known for being the faceless grunts of the Empire.
But despite the fact that you never see them, Abrams thought it was important to have women among the ranks. You wouldn't know it at first glance, because their armor isn't any different than the armor of a male Stormtrooper.
