On October 27 we will all get to binge watch Stranger Things season 2 aka Stranger Things Vol. 2 aka the sequel. It has easily become Netflix’s most popular series. So much so that just ten days before the second season is available for streaming, Netflix released a season one collector’s edition Blu-ray set exclusive to Target. I saw it on the self at the store and I couldn’t pass it up. I had to have it. I’m a huge fan of the series and an even bigger Winona Ryder fan, so how could I say no? $24.99 (plus tax) later it was mine.
Stranger Things season 1 Target Exclusive Collector’s Edition Blu-ray set. As I got home to unwrap it everything was perfect. It poses as a VHS from the 80’s or 90’s down to the size and even goes as far as having the four discs (2 Blu-rays and 2 DVDs) in a box that looks just like a VHS cassette tape. There’s even a pretty cool poster that comes along with it as a bonus. It is by far the most awesome collector’s edition packaging I have ever seen. And I didn’t have to give a demogorgon my first child for it. The packing brought back the nostalgia just as much as the series did of being a kid growing up in the age of great family Sci-Fi films such as E.T., Explorers, Little Monsters and having to pop the cassette tape into the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder for some of you youngains out there). I popped in the first Blu-ray disc (which contains four episodes) and I was automatically hit with a very awesome season two trailer followed by a trailer for The Defenders. Advertising at its finest. These were not a big nuisance to me but I could not skip them at all or fast forward through them which can turn into a nuisance if I were to put the disc in multiple times. Not that I wanted to skip the Stranger Things season two trailer but the Defenders trailer on the other hand…
Anyway, the menu had finally popped up and bam! It hit me. Something was missing from the almost perfect in-home release. There’s no special features. Zero. Zip. Nada. I felt as though the demogorogon’s abducted me and put me into The Upside Down.
One thing I was looking forward to the most when I first heard about the Blu-ray release was that it was possible that we could get some special features with it. Some commentary from the Duffer brothers or from the cast. Some “making of” featurette, deleted scenes. If any one of these things added I would have been completely happy with. Especially when it comes to hearing from the Duffer bros. Picking their brain a bit to see what influenced them. What made them want to go with an 80’s feel? Things like that would have been cool to hear for aspiring creators and die-hard fans. I mean, I suppose I could just go to Youtube and look up some interviews but it would have been nice to have something like these included.
By now you’re probably wondering if I regret buying the set or probably telling me to just “shut up and stop complaining.” Well the answer to the question is: No. I absolutely do not regret my purchase. As I had mentioned before, it’s the best looking collector’s edition Blu-ray set that I have ever seen. I highly recommend it if you are a collector or a fan of the show and you happen to have some spare change laying around. (You’ll need quite a bit of spare change). And about the second part, the article is almost done so I will shut up in due time. But just know that your special features are the packaging and the demogorgon poster that’s included with the set.
The post Something’s Missing from the ‘Stranger Things’ Vol. 1 Blu-ray and It’s Not Will appeared first on Age of The Nerd.