I think most of us Shadowhunters had begun to think it was an April Fool’s joke – but here it is, after a very, very anticipated wait.

Perfect casting is pretty darn perfect. What say you?

If you’re tired of just looking at pictures or Tony Stark’s awesome Iron Man armor, then I suggest you get to Disneyland between April and September this year!

It has just been announced via the Disney Parks Blog that a new exhibit will be coming to Innoventions at Disneyland in California on April 13. The exhibit is called Iron Man Tech Presented by Stark Industries, and will give visitors the chance to go inside Tony Stark’s Hall of Armor and much more.

Beginning April 13, Iron Man Tech Presented by Stark Industries will give Disneyland park guests the chance to see Tony Stark’s Hall of Armor, featuring Iron Man suits Mark I-VII – the same suits featured in “Iron Man 3.” And you will even be able to virtually “suit up,” yourself! Through simulation technology, guests will be able to see what it’s like to operate the latest pieces of the Mark 42 Iron Man armor, even getting the chance to test out its infamous repulsor blasts.

I’m not sure what is meant by “virtually suiting up through simulation technology”, but you can count me in. Literally. Lucky for me, the soon-to-be-Mrs. Arse-bot and I will be going to Disneyland in May for our honeymoon, and you can bet your ass I’ll be checking this out. I will be starting a Kickstarter in the next few days to preemptively start raising money to make bail for when I get arrested for trying to don a suit of armor and fly out of the park.

For those of you that may not be able to make the journey to Disneyland during this time frame, check back at the end of May as I plan to have a full report and plenty of pictures from this hopefully-awesome display!

You can follow Arse-bot and all the pointless thoughts he puts out into the interwebs on Twitter @Arse_bot

Speaking to SciFi Now, Ian McDiarmid reiterated his desire to return to the screen as Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine.

He’s love to see a tragic arc for Palpatine and see him in his own solo film or returning to the small screen:

“Yes, I’m sort of interested in any future development he might have,” admits McDiarmid. “Unfortunately, as you probably know, he died at the end of Episode VI, Vader sent him to cosmic hell so he’s not going to feature in any of the new Disney ones, I don’t think.

“On the other hand they’ve got lots of exciting ideas for spin-offs about separate characters and so on, and then there is the television series which George has talked about and decided to make into being for a number of years, and that takes place between Episodes III and IV when the Emperor is very much alive. So I think he probably does have a future.”

This news shouldn’t be surprising to any longtime readers of this space. Back in August we brought you a report about blatant intimations McDiarmid made during Star Wars Celebration VI.

I love the idea of Palpatine coming back with Ian McDiarmid reprising his role. I love the idea of the live action TV series and further exploring the purge of the Jedi. I love the idea of a Palpatine spin-off film.

Quite frankly, I just love the idea of more Star Wars, and if this is one way we get it and McDiarmid is on board, it’s to all of our benefit. I’m generally bored by the Sith, but McDiarmid’s Palpatine is a character I could watch reading the phone book.

[via Club Jade]

This week, we were grateful to have Sam Witwer and Jenna Busch join us on the Full of Sith podcast.

There, we talked about many things, Star Wars chief among them. Sam and Jenna both recounted their first experiences discovering the world of Star Wars. In addition to his work on shows like Being Human, Battlestar Galactica, and Smallville, Sam has had a long and storied history with Star Wars, voicing Starkiller in The Force Unleashed, and Darth Maul and others on The Clone Wars. Jenna is a longtime geek journalist and co-host of Cocktails with Stan Lee.

While the talk mainly focused on Star Wars (Sam’s explanation of showing David Giuntoli from Grimm Star Wars for the first time ever is a must listen on its own, as is Jenna’s conversation about Stan Lee and Star Wars), we did do talk a bit about Being Human, the mythology of storytelling, and why things must have meaning.

It’s an interview I’m incredibly proud of and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to it as well. In fact I know you will. The reason I’ve hesitated posting the interview here on the site is that initial response was so high we crashed our servers for a couple of days so people were having a hard time listening to the episode, but that’s all fixed now.

You can directly download or listen to the interview here, or you can check out the Full of Sith website for more ways to listen, including iTunes, Stitcher, and others.

Here’s the official synopsis of the show:

Sam Witwer, the voice of Darth Maul and Starkiller, and Jenna Busch, writer on Fanhattan and co-host of Cocktails with Stan Lee, joined Mike, Bryan, and Consetta for an exhaustive conversation about their connection to Star Wars, Being Human, Stan Lee, and the proper viewing order of the films. This might be one of the most fascinating conversations we’ve ever had on Full of Sith!

Make sure you come back and let us know what you thought.

Back at Dragon*Con 2012, we had the opportunity to interview the redoubtable John Rhys-Davies. You’ll know him as Sallah from the Indiana Jones movies, Gimli from The Lord of the Rings, Kingpin from the early Marvel films, a Bond villain, Wing Commander, and a thousand other films, geek or otherwise.

The entire interview (along with the wonderful pictures taken by Scarlett Robotica) can be seen in the youtube video above. For those who want to put it on their iPod, Kill-tacular-tron will be getting it into the Big Shiny Robot! iTunes feed.

I have to tell you, there is nothing quite like having a conversation with John Rhys-Davies and have him break out into his deep belly-laugh. It’s infectious and puts a smile on your face. He’s just a bright and charming man.

Below are a few of my favorite highlights:

About Raiders of the Lost Ark:

John Rhys-Davies: Very early on, Steven called us together and said he wanted to film it very fast, partly because it’s his friend, George Lucas’ money, and he didn’t want to waste it, and also partly because he as a director needed to try something different, to shoot fast. He said, “We will print first and second takes, and some times we will print mistakes, but I’m hoping to get a freshness, and immediacy. We’ll throw the paint on the canvas and work it quickly before it dries and move on. For a story like this, if we do this, good things may happen.” And that smart man, Steven, was absolutely right; it was a blast to do. When I first read the script, my agent asked me what I thought and I said it was either going to be the biggest disaster of all time, or it might set a new fashion in filmmaking, but whatever, I want in.

Swank: Was it more or less challenging knowing you had to be on spot and nail it in only a few takes?

JRD: I was fairly young and innocent about this, as I’d mainly done stage work, so I didn’t know better. My job is to deliver what the director wants, to service the script and my fellow actors. To a greater or lesser extent, you do it, and if you’re lucky and do it consistently, then there’s another job. There’s no great career plan for most actors, we are more children of serendipity or blighted by disaster than we ever recognize. Any achievement of course is mine, fate has nothing to do with it!

It’s really an interview you just need to listen to, as well.

And one other note: he offered to take pictures with us and wrapped his arms around us. The first things he did was tickle us, subtly at first, then much more fiercely. You can see it in the photos:

This trailer looks great, even though it doesn’t quite feel like Star Trek to me. I want to see them exploring, not playing cops and robbers. But I’m sure this will have all of its moments and I’ll be stupid to have been wary at all.

Embedded in the trailer, over the adorable shot of Alice Even in her underwear, was a hidden link to a new poster for the film. Well played, Abrams. Well played.

On the other hand, did it look to anyone else like Benedict Cumberbatch took a page out of the Godfather 3 book?

Just sayin’.

Star Trek: Into Darkness comes out in May, at which point JJ Abrams will surely go into overdrive directing the next Star Wars picture.

BleedingCool is reporting that Brian Muir, the man who sculpted Vader’s helmet and the stormtroopers and droids and a whole bunch of other things for the Star Wars saga, as well as The Ark of the Covenant in Raiders, and the Space Jockey in Alien, is working at Pinewood Studios working on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

This is big news for Marvel fans, Star wars fans, and fans of science fiction in general. This strengthens the ever tightening connections between Marvel, Disney, and Star Wars.

There’s no official word about who or what he might be sculpting, but the obvious choice would be Star Lord:

BleedingCool did their best to verify, but came up with nothing official.

And our most sincere thanks to Jeff Vice, our very own Jerk-Bot, for the tip.

This first appeared on The Huffington Post.

In honor of the 25th anniversary Blu-ray release of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (which is in the running for the best film ever directed by Robert Zemeckis) I was given the extreme pleasure of interviewing the voice of Roger Rabbit himself, Charles Fleischer. In the intervening 25 years, Fleischer has become something of a renaisaince man. In addition to his acting, he’s an accomplished stand-up comic, and has even made scientific discoveries in the field of gamma rays, leading me to believe he might actually be The Hulk.

He was more than happy to talk about this classic film from his past, however.

Bryan Young: Roger Rabbit has a staying power not frequent with movies. It gets played with noir films like the Maltese Falcon. Why do you think it has had the cultural staying power it does.

Charles Fleischer: There are a few reasons. Number one, Robert Zemeckis and in addition to that, Richard Williams who did the aspect of designing Roger and the animation. Both of them are geniuses. When you factor that into the script and the fact it took place in the past, introducing cartoon characters, so it created a sensibility whereby he already existed, it made it easier to accept as something that’s always been as opposed to trying to present a new cartoon character in the world of 2013.

BY: You insisted on being in a Roger Rabbit suit for the duration of filming, and I’m wondering what your thinking was behind that.

Charles Fleischer: Unlike other voice over situations which are done in a recording studio, Roger Rabbit was live action and animation combined, and there was a time factor, so my voice was recorded live on the set. So I’m on the set rehearsing and recording my voice as a performance with the other actors, and they’re all wearing costumes, and it made sense to me. When you do a movie, you go to the location and get into your costume. It’s part of your metamorphosis into your character, and it just made sense to do it. At first, Bob Hoskins thought I was just a crazy American, but later he did thank me for doing that because it helped him visualize a character who wasn’t really there.

Bryan Young: Aside from the gorgeous HD transfer, what should we be excited for on this new Blu-ray release?

Charles Fleischer: What you will find on the Blu-ray that has not been on other releases are the inclusion of the Roger Rabbit shorts, “Tummy Trouble” and “Rollercoaster Rabbit”, those have not been together in one package. That really makes this an extraordinary situation that not only can you get the movie on blu ray and all the features that have previously been there, but you get the inclusion of the three separate shorts which were originally released with other films the way they used to in the other days where you’d have a cartoon short before the feature. In fact, one of them was before Dick Tracy, and I appeared in Dick Tracy, so I had a double billing in that movie.

And then talk quickly turned to the rumoured Roger Rabbit sequel starring Roger and Mickey Mouse.

Bryan Young: Gary K. Wolf, who wrote the book the movie is based on, posted on his web site recently that there was going to be some more Roger Rabbit. Is there anything you can say about that?

Charles Fleischer: Because I am not an executive at Disney Studios, I would say it’s premature to make any comments, however, if there is to be a sequel, I would more than likely consider that Rob Zemeckis would be the man at the helm, and all those other things are premature or authentic and doubtful in my opinion. I do still have hope that Bob Zemeckis will again take the helm and bring Roger back. It’s been 25 years, and that’s a good amount of time to wait.

It’s hard to imagine a sequel happening without Robert Zemeckis, and without him, I’m not sure I’d want to see a sequel to this classic film at all. But anything can materialize, and Disney isn’t in the habit of leaving cash on the floor anymore.

The 25th Anniversary Blu-ray of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is available now.

Bryan Young is an author and the editor of the geek news and review site Big Shiny Robot!

Just in time for tomorrow’s release (four hours and 51 minutes by my watch) of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Warner Bros. provides fans with a blog app with fun quizzes and great ways to introduce your young ones to the world of Tolkien. You can take the Hobbit quiz, learn a little more about Middle Earth’s races, and download a PDF with some Middle Earth fun facts.

Turns out yours truly is 83% Hobbit, which is not surprising considering I am 4’11’ and have hairy feet eat six times a day am afraid of goblins. You can bet I will be making my own Hobbit Hole to watch the movie tomorrow night, and the PDF is a wonderful start to a fun activity book for Middle Earth recipes, art, and maybe a future doodle of Smaug or two (without eating up a ton of drive space or printer ink).

Now – let’s get creative! In the comments below, you must post your score on the Hobbit quiz, and link us to a photo of your Hobbit hole, costume, or show us how your version of Bombur’s recipe turned out! You have until April 5th to enter, and on April 6th we will announce one lucky winner who will receive a Blu-Ray combo pack of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”! The photos can be of you or your friends and family, as long as you have permission to share them. In other words, please no photos of your phys ed teacher labeled “orc.” Or “troll.”

An exceedingly trustworthy, but former, Big Shiny Robot! who must remain nameless passed along this major scoop about the nature of a couple of aspects of The Avengers 2. We will not be referring to names to protect the identities and jobs of those who brought us this report. If anyone traced it back to the actual source, they would most certainly lose their jobs over this. And since we’re not making this up (how could we?) there are people’s jobs at stake here.

Now, first and foremost, bear in mind that these are things going on in the Marvel operation that are still in flux. Perhaps shedding light on them and voicing our enthusiasm will be more likely, but these scenarios have a lot of players at the table, so the stakes are high and the ability for negotiations to fall through are immense, especially considering the size of the players.

Secondly, bear in mind that if these negotiations succeed and turn out to be more than rumours, these are MAJOR spoilers. Turn away if you’re concerned.

Now, this former robot was plying a person of stature in the Marvel operation with adult beverages and learned the following:

• Agent Phil Coulson would be returning to Avengers 2, but not as himself. This cameo would arrive possibly as Vision or Deathlok. The details are sparse, but part of the iffy-ness about this particular bit of decision-making is to see what comes of the SHIELD series and Coulson’s place inside it. Deathlok might be more canon, since he’s traditionally “inhabited” by a deceased individual, but the makers of these films aren’t shy about creating their own film continuity for the good of the franchise and story.

• The Avengers will have cameos. But whose, you ask? We have learned that Marvel is in talks with Fox to get cameos from the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Storm. Wolverine. The Human Torch. Reed Richards.
• More cameos. Those aren’t all. They’re also negotiating separately with Sony to get a Spider-Man cameo.

These are in continuing negotiation and might not happen, but this tells us that Marvel (and Disney) is serious about getting us the Marvel Universe into a cohesive unit. By all rights, Avengers 2 might well be the biggest super-hero movie of all time, and it would behoove Fox and Sony to allow the Marvel characters they have in play to cameo in that filmed universe and film. It’s a win for Marvel to up the visibility of the characters and create something unified (unless the future X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man movies suck), but it would speak volumes to the fans.

And it’s not so unheard of. Disney/Marvel were in negotiations with Sony to get the Oscorp Building in Avengers, but the process was too slow to get it into the film in time. I imagine those same wheels have been turning since then.

Reminder: take these things as rumours or possibilities. There is no guarantee any of this will shake out, but it is being discussed at the higher echelons of Marvel.

You can learn more details on this month’s episode of the Big Shiny Podcast, where Kill-tacular-tron goes into more detail.

KMC-1138 and Kill-tacular-tron contributed to this report.