Disney

One of the more interesting elements of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy animated series has afforded movie-influenced backstories to each character, that while not necessarily canon, offer insightful looks into the character history James Gunn could only exposit in the film. Next up comes Rocket Raccoon, whose gruesome origins are a tough one to tackle for Disney XD.

Sora, Donald and Goofy are going to San Fransokyo as last year's hit Disney film Big Hero 6 will have its own world in Kingdom Hearts III. According to Japanator, Disney announced at its D23 event this weekend that the world and characters of Big Hero 6 would be joining the ranks of Kingdom Hearts III. Sora and the gang will be entering San Fransokyo after the events of the movie, so expect all kinds of awesome superhero escapades and some astonishing encounters with Baymax, Hiro and the rest of the gang.

Anyone initially skeptical of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy quickly changed their tune at the prospect of talking raccoons and trees, something Disney XD’s upcoming animated rendition knows full-well. Our latest look at Guardians of the Galaxy writes a love letter to all raccoons, talking or otherwise.

Ever since Disney bought Lucasfilm and Marvel, theme-park fans have wondered when the company would start to take advantage of their shiny new properties in their theme parks. And for a good long time, there was nothing. Marvel presented a tangled web of rights issues. Star Wars proved a creative challenge. But now, the floodgates look like they’re about to open. New rumors concerning the presence of both franchises at California’s Disneyland have emerged and it sounds like Disney isn’t kidding around.

This September is home to arguably the most anticipated shopping day of the year for many longtime Star Wars fans. Hasbro, Disney and Lucasfilm have appointed that day as "Force Friday," which will be the very first day merchandise from Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be available for purchase. If you've visited a Toys 'R Us in the past month, you may have spotted the countdown clock, ticking down to 12:01AM on Sept. 4, 2015, which will be when hundreds of stores nationwide open their doors for thousands of fans eager to get their hands on Force Awakens merchandise. To this point, much of the upcoming slate of releases for the Force Awakens have been shrouded in secrecy. There have been hints and teases as to what to expect, but until very recently, no one outside of the major merchandisers and manufacturers really knew what was in store. That all changed about a week ago when the very first leaks started springing from the good ship Star Wars. While we've only seen a few Hasbro products in blurry pictures to this point, today Amazon (which is always good for a few leaks) accidentally pushed the pre-order pages for all of Funko's planned Force Awakens Pop figures.

Guardians of the Galaxy gave (or at least alluded to) backstories of only four of its five members, but haven’t we all wondered who puts the Groot in “I am Groot?” Get the full story of Groot’s growth (as well as our first animated look at Ronan the Accuser) in a new short from Disney XD’s animated Guardians of the Galaxy!

Just over a year to the day after Guardians of the Galaxy had us all hooked on a feeling in theaters, Star-Lord and the crew are back with a brand-new beat. We’ve seen a few frames, but the first official Guardians animated series trailer brings a Galaxy’s worth of new action.

We were fortunate enough to be on hand at Comic-Con 2015 to catch Marvel’s animated Guardians of the Galaxy premiere, but now it seems the Disney XD series will fill in backstory even the movie skipped over. See Star-Lord and Yondu’s first meeting in our first full clip from the new Guardians series!

It's not often that I set my alarm on a Sunday, but when there is an opportunity to check out some new toys before they arrive on the market, I have been known to be motivated enough to drag myself out of bed. I've been eager to see Disney Playmation in action ever since it was announced, and even though I'm not the target demographic, I happened to know a would-be Avenger that was more than willing to try out the new toys, too. What kid doesn't want the opportunity to be Iron Man for a day? There hasn't been much news about Playmation since its big reveal in June, but the Disney Store just started hosting public preview events earlier this month. Disney Playmation came about in response to a Disney-funded study that revealed parents wished their kids spent more time being active, but didn't want them to have to give up newfangled technological advances. Created by some of Disney's best and brightest Imagineers and developers to nail the intersection of that big Venn diagram, and with a little help from Hasbro, Playmation was born. Thirty minutes after arriving at "Avengers Labs," I had a much clearer idea of what Playmation was and what to expect. Even though I now have a better notion of how Disney Playmation works, I have concerns about whether or not it can accomplish the lofty goals set for it.

We were on hand at Comic-Con 2015 for an advance look at Marvel’s new Guardians of the Galaxy animated series, but don’t feel bad for missing out. Well, don’t feel good either, but feel a little bit of both with our first look at a new trailer promo for Star-Lord, Rocket, Groot and all the rest’s continued adventures.