‘Finding Dory’ Is Now Available (Plus Easter Eggs)

Finding Dory is now available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD. My preference, as always with Disney movies, is the Combo pack. We use the Blu-ray at home, the DVD in the car, and the Digital whenever we’re travelling (Digital HD has saved more than one plane ride for us!)

I won’t rave about the movie itself too much as we’ve covered it here already, but I will say that we were long time Nemo fans and Finding Dory is a great sequel to those films. I have to admit that I was skeptical when I first heard about it, but, honestly, I liked it better than Nemo. Dory’s story is, in many ways, one about adoption (Nemo and Marlin are her family) and learning about where you came from. As recent adoptive parents, Dory hit home a lot more than Nemo ever did.

But enough about the movie itself, what about the bonus features?

I’ll start you off with a fun clip to watch. There are a ton of clips like this in the extras that feature hand drawn art for deleted scenes and alternate takes. I love seeing these in contrast to the 3D animation.

The bonus features clock in at over two hours of content (and that’s if you don’t include the audio commentary for the whole film). My favorite of the bunch is easily the deleted scenes. I love seeing deleted scenes of movies and the variety of ones on this disc are great. There are some 3D animated scenes but there are also plenty of hand drawn ones that never made it that far and tons of alternate takes (there are four different opening scenes that weren’t used.) And each deleted scene has commentary explaining the decisions behind the cuts.

As expected the short, Piper, also makes an appearance along with an all-new mini short created just for the home release–Marine Life Interviews. It’s a really cute watch  of the other animals giving interviews about their experiences with Dory.

There are also a plethora of behind the scenes vignettes and interviews that really give a great feel for what its like to work on a film like this, how to get into the industry, and some of the big challenges (Hank was especially problematic) the teams encountered and overcame to make Finding Dory.

A nice little extra is a handful of living aquarium scenes. These are just beautiful, 3D animated scenes of underwater plants and animals that you can essentially use as screen savers. They are so peaceful to watch and could easily be used for meditating or just something nice to have on in the background.

One of my other favorites are the “outtakes.” There is a bunch of footage of weird computer glitches and goofs that happened during 3D animation. These always crack me up and there are some real gems in here (I don’t think that goes there!)

And that still doesn’t cover everything included! I intend to finish watching the rest in the coming days, but even without all of this great content, we’d have been getting Finding Dory anyway.

And lastly, I wanted to share a handful of easter eggs from the movie you may have missed at first. Keep an eye out for them when you watch it again at home!

The truck in Dory has three little easter eggs–the license plate includes the “A113” Pixar fans are always looking for as well as “Shank” in the grill. Don Shank was the Sets Art Director on Dory.

And inside the truck, the logo on the steering wheel is from the 1986 short “Luxo, Jr.” produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter which helped launch the studio.

Speaking of A113, the tags donned by Rudder and Fluke also spell it out when side by side.

The Marine Life Institute rafts registration number is “PA 1200” which represents Pixar’s physical address, 1200 Park Avenue.

And lastly, my favorite, is Riley from Inside Out staring at Dory through the glass.

Grab yourself a copy today and enjoy Finding Dory again along with a ton of great bonus content!

NOTE: I received a copy of this movie for review purposes but all thought and opinions above are my own.