Spider-Man (3-Disc Deluxe Edition) (DVD)

As Spider-Man 2 is just knocking on the door Columbia Pictures is releasing a "Deluxe" edition of the original Spider-Man film. With this edition you will get the original 2-Disc special edition DVD along with a bonus third disc with 35 minutes of special features you haven't seen until now, but is this really worth it or is it just a marketing ploy to get you to spend more money while at the same time adding additional excitement for Spider-Man 2?

Well, first off it is obviously a marketing tactic, but who wouldn't take advantage of this opportunity. Spider-Man is extremely marketable and the numbers don't lie when it comes to audience spending regarding the film as it broke box-office records all over the place. At the same time I can also say that if you already own the original release of Spider-Man on DVD don't consider buying this version since it doesn't offer enough to go and spend more cash, even though it is reasonably priced at $17.47 over at Amazon.com.

I don't want to bore the hell out of you going over all the special features, as you can see over on the right there are a TON of them, so in an effort to keep this moving quickly I will give you a quick overview of the original 2-Disc edition and then some insight into the bonus disc.

You can see disc one comes equipped with two commentaries and a bunch of "in-film" goodies to watch, which all work very well, but the best of all has got to be the pop-up option you can turn on during the playing of the film, which I usually don't like, but with a comic book adaptation film it seems to fit quite nicely. Plus you get two music videos from the highly successful soundtrack including the great song "Hero" by Chad Kroeger featuring Josey Scott, love that song!

Disc two was the original edition's special features disc and it is an excellent disc for a comic fan, but for others you may tend to get a bit bored. You have two options to start off, the first sends you into a section containing a large amount of features dedicated to the Spider-Man comic and the other is more "making-of" and feature related.

I don't tend to enjoy all the comic book features, which covers every aspect of the Spider-Man comic including a look at the comic itself and the plotline each comic followed. If you are a comic guru you are going to love this section, including the 25 minute feature which features commentary by several individuals, most prominently actor/director Kevin Smith and Spider-Man creator Stan Lee, but for the rest of you it is all foreign, as it was for me.

Now, the other section is much more to my liking including the HBO special feature and the E! Channel feature, but what I liked best was the profile feature on Sam Raimi, which includes interviews from several of the cast and crew concerning their opinion on Raimi. There is another feature like this on composer Danny Elfman, which is good as well, but just doesn't hold up to the other.

As the bonus features continue we have our bonus disc, which includes a 5 minute sneak peek at Spider-Man 2 plus the teaser trailer for the film as well as seven new featurettes based on the original Spider-Man film. The seven new features span about 35 minutes and are best viewed as one with the "play all" option.

The best of the featurettes is the detailed insight to the creation of the Spider-Man and Green Goblin costumes and the final feature based on the Green Goblin's Arsenal.

Overall this third disc has special features that I am surprised were not included on the original edition, since they are pretty standard and are actually quite good. As for the Spider-Man 2 stuff it is too short to really get all that excited about and you have seen most of it before if you care enough to find out.

With everything that I have touched upon so far there is still more for you beyond the DVD player when you take your discs to your computer for TONS of DVD-ROM features. Now if I went into detail on all of this we would be here forever and since most of the titles explain themselves you will know what to expect but here is the rundown.

Disc One:
Comic/Feature Comparison: Compare the comic to the film in real time with the feature.
Record your own commentary: Not much explanation needed, and you will only find interest in this if you are extremely bored.
Countdown to Spider-Man 2: Just links you to the official Spider-Man 2 website, you wanna see it go here.

Disc Two:
Spider-Man Visualizer: After downloading more stuff onto your computer Spider-Man will dance around your screen as a screensaver.
MARVEL dot.comics: 3 comic books right on your desktop, not exactly my cup-o-tea.
Activision PC Game: Here you get 2 levels of the Spider-Man video game. I am not a much of a gamer so you decide.

Disc Three:
Spider-Man 2 Activision PC Game: Once again, not a gamer, but here you have the chance to play multiple levels from the upcoming video game.

Whew! There you have it. A ton of features and a lot of items to keep you busy, but as I said, if you already own the movie don't bother with this release, just encourage one of your friends to buy it then check out the third disc. On the other hand if you are yet to purchase the film and have been wanting to this is your chance. The price is extremely reasonable and you have the cash right?