It makes sense that the extras are spread across the three Blu-ray discs in this set. Here's a look at what you'll find and where you'll find it.

The Fast And The Furious:

The extras for the first movie in the set kick off with a commentary track from director Rob Cohen. This is a rock solid scene specific examination of the movie from the director's point of view and it provides a really good 'top down' look at what went into making this picture. You can watch this as a standard audio commentary or as a picture-in-picture track that, when an icon appears on the screen, allows you access footage further detailing whatever it is that Rob happens to be talking about at any given time. At any rate, Rob covers what it was like bringing this project in from start to finish, makes some interesting comparisons to other movies, and talks about casting, shooting stunts, and about the film's unique look. It's a very in-depth track, with not a minute or wasted time.

The featurettes start with the all new Dom's Charger (HD), which is a neat four minute look under the hood of the car the Vin Diesel drives in the film. There's some great vintage footage of the car in here as well as some fairly fluffy and brief cast and crew interviews. Also new to this release is Quarter Mile At A Time (HD), a ten minute examination of real world street racing, looking at where and why people get involved in this pretty dangerous sport. Experts and drivers are interviewed here and it's actually pretty interesting stuff.

The Fast And The Furious Video Mash Up (HD) is a strange interactive feature that allows you to monkey around with a few clips from the film, change the music, alter the timing, and more or less make your own alternate (and abbreviated) cut of the movie. It's probably not something that you'll spend a lot of time with but it's interesting to play with the technology.

Also found on this disc are a selection of eight Deleted Scenes (SD) that total about six minutes in length. Cohen provides an optional introduction and commentary that explains why this material was taken out of the finished version of the film. This is worth going through to check out some of the excised race bits.

The Making Of The Fast And The Furious (SD) is an eighteen minute behind the scenes/interview montage that features most of the core cast and crew members on set and sitting in front of the camera to talk about their experiences on the film. It's pretty flat, very promotional feeling and without a whole lot of substance to it, but some of the interviews are amusing enough, particularly those that lean towards the technical side of things and that discuss the stunt work.

Tricking Out A Hot Import Car is a twenty minute featurette hosted by comely Playboy Playmate Dalene Kurtis and movie stunt guru Craig Lieberman. Kurtis is more fun to look at but Lieberman has more to offer from a technical perspective as the pair (well, Lieberman, really) explain how various cars were altered and changed for use in the film.

Multiple Camera Angle Stunt Sequence (SD) is a quick, one minute that, as the title explains, shows us two different camera angles for some of the film's impressive stunt work. This gives us an alternate perspective on how these stunts played out and is actually fairly interesting and worth checking out. Similar is the four minute Movie Magic Interactive Special Effects (SD) bit which includes dissections of three different key scenes in the film, showing how they look with and without post production effects work applied to them. One of the most interesting extras on this release is the Featurette On Editing For The Motion Picture Association Of America (SD) which is a five minute piece in which Rob Cohen and editor Peter Honess explain what had to be changed and edited to get the film a PG-13 rating for when it played in theaters. Getting a director's input on how the MPAA's standards can effect his vision and learning what has to be done sometimes to secure that rating makes for interesting viewing.

The Visual Effects Montage (SD) is pretty useless - it's really simply a few minutes of bad techno music over top of some footage showing us what things looked like with and without added CGI tweaking.

Rounding out the extras are a brief Paul Walker Public Service Announcement (SD) encouraging us to drive safely, three Music Videos (all in SD), a Sneak Peak At 2 Fast 2 Furious (SD, basically a commercial), a five minute Turbo-Charged Prelude To 2 Fast 2 Furious (SD) and the original Theatrical Trailers (HD). The U-Control functionality allows access to vehicle specs and a picture-in-picture track during playback.

2 Fast 2 Furious:

The extras start off with a feature length commentary from director John Singleton. This is a surprisingly good track that features a pretty animated talk from the man who made the movie, as he discusses what he likes about the movie and what he does feel worked so well. He talks about casting the film, following up the original, working with the actors and actresses in the picture and about some of the specific difficulties he encountered while shooting some of the race scenes. Singleton gets pretty detailed and does a good job explaining his side of the story, even if there are a few dreaded moments of awkward silence where maybe the addition of a moderator would have helped a bit.

Fast Females (HD) is a new eight minute featurette that gives us the low down on each one of the female characters in each one of the movies in the series, including the new film. It's pretty promotional in nature but it's funny to watch in a roundabout sort of way as the participants discuss how important these characters are to the films, when in reality, let's face it, they're eye candy.

Hollywood Impact (HD) is another new featurette that examines just where these movies fight in amongst the countless other action movies that hit the screens every year. Leonard Martin and Joel Stein show up to talk about how much they like these films and why as do a few of the people who worked on the pictures. Watching some of the film critics talk with great serious intent about these movies is rather amusing and makes this otherwise fairly promotional thirteen minutes of back-patting quite watchable.

The Prelude To 2 Fast 2 Furious (HD) is basically a three minute bit where Paul Walker drives around in his car that supposedly serves as a link between this film and its predecessor. It's not particularly interesting but it's nice to see it included here in high definition. Also found on the disc are three minutes worth of Deleted Scenes (SD) and a couple of minutes of Outtakes (SD). Director John Singleton and editor Bruce Cannon explain why the deleted scenes were taken out of the movie in an introduction and the material is in rough shape with time code on top of it. None of this material is all that interesting, most of it is just longer versions of scenes that were used in the final cut of the film.

Up next are some brief featurettes starting with Inside 2 Fast 2 Furious (SD) is nine minutes of behind the scenes footage and interviews that does manage to offer up some interesting footage shot on set while the film was in production. It's too short to offer a whole lot of substance but if you dug the movie, this is worth a watch. Actors Driving School (SD) is a look at how the three core actors trained to be able to handle the cars in a realistic manner for their roles in the films while Tricking Out A Hot Import Car (SD), which was on the first disc, is repeated here again for some reason. The Supercharged Stunts (SD) section gives us five minutes or so worth of 'how'd they do that?' footage showing off what went in to creating the impressive stunt scenes that we see in the finished movie. Making Music With Ludacris (SD) is just what it sounds like, a quick peak at the man's contribution to the soundtrack and how he created it, and the Actor Spotlights (SD) section contains quick interviews with Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibbons and Devon Aoki, all of whom seem to have enjoyed working on the picture. The Car Spotlights (SD) section gives us some information on three vehicles used in the film while the Furious Afterburners (SD) includes two segments: The Derby Scene Extension and Verone, Whitworth And Monica At The House, neither of which add much of anything to the finished movie.

Rounding out the extras are some animated menus and chapter stops. The Blu-ray exclusive U-Control functionality on this release allows you to access storyboards or access technical specs about each of the vehicles seen in the movie as well as an Animated Anecdotes P-I-P track that, in a scene specific style, shares a few amusing stories about the making of the movie as it plays out. The trailer for the film is not included on the Blu-ray disc for some reason.

The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift

First up, in terms of supplements, is a feature length commentary track with the director of the film, Justin Lin. The director comes across as a genuinely nice guy who was very appreciative of the chance he was given to work on the film and for the cast and crew who he had alongside with him the entire time. Throughout the talk he covers quite a bit of detail regarding the stunt driving, the casting decisions that he had to make, and a lot of the location shooting. He covers what was shot overseas and what was shot in L.A., and talks about how some of the more impressive shots were coordinated.

The Making Of The Fast Franchise (HD) is a seventeen minute featurette that is basically a bunch of EPK clips and movie clips put together to form a new documentary that isn't really all that interesting. That said, there are some interview bits in here that do shed some light on the history of the movies in the series - but there's not much here that isn't covered in the other supplements or the commentary tracks.

Drift: A Sideways Craze (HD) is an hour long featurette that explores the real life science behind the drifting seen in the movie, and you know what? It's awesome. This is really interesting stuff and it's pretty cool to get to see how certain Japanese racers have gone to school to learn how to master this form of racing and actually see it in action outside the context of a very fictional movie. We learn how and where this trend started and talk to some of the pioneers of the fad and we see how it's taken off in California and in Tokyo. This is presented with a nice standard definition DTS 5.1 track and it's quite literally the best extra in the entire set.

Up next are a series of Deleted Scenes (SD) that for once probably could have been left in the movie as they provide some nice moments of character development which would have helped out the weakest part of the movie. Justin Lin provides optional commentary for each of these scenes which explains why they were taken out of the finished version of the movie.

From there we move on to a series of featurettes starting with Drifting School (SD) which is an amusing look at the key cast members trying to master the drifting technique that is used throughout the movie. Throughout this training we see them take a few different lessons but none of them really excel at it. Regardless, at least through this featurette we can gain an appreciation of how difficult drifting probably is.

Up next is Cast Cam (HD) which is little more than some random behind the scenes shot by various cast and crew members while the film was in production. There's really no narrative here which makes it little more than random images and it doesn't add a whole lot to the package. The next featurette is The Big Breakdown: Han's Last Ride (HD) which is a break down of how the chase through the middle of downtown Tokyo was put together using CGI and real stunt driving. This is a pretty interesting piece and if you're at all interested in racing or in special effects and stunt work it's worth watching. Tricked Out To Drift (HD) is another interesting segment that gives us some information on each of the main cars that was used in the film and how the director and the designers of the film tried to match the cars to the characters (for example, Bow Wow drives a Hulk car which is flashy and loud much like his character whereas Han has a slick, subtle car that is plenty fast and very efficient).

Welcome To Drifting (SD) is a six minute featurette that regurgitates a lot of what we learned in the more comprehensive documentary already covered. It does feature some cool behind the scenes footage and a couple of cast interviews, but it's pretty superficial. It's presented in SD. The next featurette, The Real Drift King (HD), is a look at the life of Keiichi Tsuchiya who is, as the title infers, the real drift king. We get a chance to see some footage of him in action and it's interesting to see who the culture of street racing has been affected by his style.

The few less substantial extras which round out the package include Custom-Made Drifter (which allows you to use an interactive program to design you own car), animated menus and chapter stops. The last featurette is The Japanese Way (HD) and it covers what it was like for a primarily American crew to shoot outside the Hollywood system for the scenes that were done in Japan and some of the issues that they ran into while doing this. Also included is a music video by Don Omar for the song Conteo (SD), as well as animated menus and chapter stops. The Blu-ray exclusive U-Control functionality on this release allows you to access storyboards, turn on a GPS and follow the action around the city, or access technical specs about each of the vehicles seen in the movie.

The three Blu-ray discs are all Blu-ray Live 2.0 compatible and D-Box Motion Code enabled. Universal's My Scenes functionality, which is a fancy bookmarking system, is also built into each disc. Each movie also includes a second disc which contains a digital copy.

Turn off your brain, turn out the lights and turn up the volume - these three films aren't exactly 'smart cinema' but they are big dumb fun and Universal has done an exceptional job on the audio and the video in addition to porting over most of the extra features from the HD-DVD/standard definition releases that these films have seen over the years. Recommended.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.