We're talking about a set jam-packed with features, delivering a wild ride through the twisted, inspired imaginations of the creative minds behind the nihilistic dramedy. You like commentaries? Fight Club has four. You want production details? Special features explore visual effects development, storyboards, location shoots, deleted scenes, alternate scenes, and more, more, more. Like a seven-course meal, the Fight Club DVDs offer something to satisfy every taste and, though it may be too much for one sitting, they also provide a broad view of the jigsaw puzzle of effects, acting, and imagination that comprise this post-modern film.

Have You Ever Been in a Fight?
Fight Club tells the story of a nameless narrator (Edward Norton), a corporate drone with a nasty case of insomnia. He finds temporary relief by attending 12-step support groups of every and any sort — cancer victims, sickle cell anemia — until chain-smoking femme fatale Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) joins the very same meetings, ruining his fix. She's also a self-professed "tourist," attending meetings because "they're cheaper than a movie and the coffee is free."

Enter Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a charismatic anarchist and soap salesman, who coaches the narrator through a rapid course in de-yuppiefication. Together they form "Fight Club" — a place where numbed-out young men pummel each other in parking lots and barroom basements to regain a sense of feeling and masculinity. The fights are not about winning, but rather about being able to take a beating. Like any drug, the high of Fight Club chaos requires increasingly larger and larger doses to satisfy. Tyler starts assigning "homework" — picking a fight with a stranger, small acts of vandalism, creating mayhem. Meanwhile, a romantic triangle forms between Tyler, Marla, and the narrator, adding fuel to an already combustible situation.

But the narrator's story is really only a device, allowing director David Fincher room to skewer consumer-culture values — from Starbucks and Martha Stewart to corporate-speak and the quest for self-improvement. Blending high-grade acting, a sometimes funny and thought-provoking tale, and eye-dazzling camerawork, Fight Club gives "good movie." Whether or not you agree with the anti-yuppie, anarchy-friendly politics of the film, the sophisticated visual effects and camera moves add outrageous style and panache to the proceedings.

DISC ONE: Film Plus Four Audio Commentaries
Four audio commentaries surely cover the every facet of the film's production. The most entertaining combines cast members Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and director Fincher, with a few added-in comments by Helena Bonham Carter (who makes an amusing revelation about how her interpretation of Marla was based on Fincher himself). It's obvious the cast members enjoyed making the film together, in spite of a 138-day shooting schedule (most big-budget films averaging 70-80 days). Refreshingly, their banter lacks the air of typical, fake Hollywood schmooze as they proceed to discuss the film's themes and gleefully slam cultural icons like Rosie O'Donnell. Norton occasionally waxes Ivy Leaguer with his references to Nietzche, but Pitt's silly feedback keeps things in balance (e.g., he wanted to play all of his scenes naked).

Fincher's solo commentary combines astute observations on the filmmaking process with personal anecdotes. After reading Chuck Palahniuk's source novel, he was willing to spend a year, unpaid, working on the screenplay with Jim Uhls to ensure that Fox understood exactly how they were going to present Fight Club's controversial material. Surprisingly, Fincher got very little interference from the studio. Less surprising, he recounts numerous run-ins with film board censors. He also shares his succinct philosophy of moviemaking: "A lot of filmmaking is f***ing up and going back."

The two remaining commentaries have limited appeal, except to the dedicated film student or Fight Club fetishist. Novelist Palahniuk reveals his inspiration for the dark tale, and discusses, with screenwriter Uhls, the plot differences between the filmed and the written story. Though funny to learn that Tyler Durden was named after the character in the children's book Tyler Goes to the Circus, much of the writers' commentary is superfluous. Finally, the design team — cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, production designer Alex McDowell, costume designer Michael Kaplan, along with visual effects supervisor Kevin Huang — elaborate on their techniques, but their contributions to Fight Club are revealed more eloquently on the second disc of the set.

DISC TWO: The DVD Generation
The second disc offers a cornucopia of insight and background on the filming of Fight Club. "Behind-the-Scenes" is broken into three sections: "Production," "Visual Effects," and "On Location." The "Production" segment focuses on six important scenes and locations, and includes looks at the storyboards, the location scout, animation/special effects elements, and filming. Viewers can watch the location and production filming individually, or in side-by-side frames, with a choice of which audio track to listen to — either Fincher discussing his vision at the location scout or his thoughts about the production itself.

The "Visual Effects" portion looks at nine innovative technical moments — Main Title, Mid-Air Collision, Furni Catalogue, Sex Scene, Ice Cave, Car Crash, Photogammetry (the technique that seemingly moves the camera through several floors of building, or through the contents of a garbage can), Gun Shot (watch Norton's head blow up over and over!), and the High-Rise Collapse — covering each in impressive detail, with comments by the design team. "On Location" is a five-minute montage of production footage which includes glimpses of Brad Pitt getting a plastic cast made and Meat Loaf testing out his fat suit.

A "Deleted/Alternate" scenes section offers seven segments that were cut or altered during the editing process, providing a rare opportunity to see how slight changes can alter a scene's impact. Changes on "Angel's Beating" and "Marla's Pillow Talk," both requested by the studio, are particularly intriguing to watch after hearing the scenes discussed in the commentaries. The disc's remaining features exhaustively lay out the production and promotion of the film. There are cast and crew biographies, artwork (including pre-production drawings, movie stills, and paintings), and a seemingly endless advertising section that includes three theatrical trailers, 17 (yes, 17!) commercials, tongue-in-cheek public service announcements by Norton and Pitt, a Dust Brothers music video of the film's theme song, lobby cards, Internet spots, and the film's press kit. If your eyes aren't yet weary, keep 'em peeled for a hidden "happy face" logo and that amusing, mock "Warning" at the film's beginning.