Recently, just about every major player in all the genres that we cover here on ScienceFiction.com gathered in one place for the Saturn Awards, an annual ceremony meant to honor the best in science fiction, fantasy, and horror film and television. This year, a big winner across the board was Marvel Studios and many figures from their crew were scattered among the guests.

One True Believer in attendance was ‘Iron Man 3’ director Shane Black and Collider had the opportunity to discuss a number of different things with him such as his first script, ‘The Last Boy Scout’, and his upcoming ‘Doc Savage’ film. But seeing as his most recent film has garnered a record-breaking amount of success, naturally the first film in Marvel’s Phase Two came up in the conversation.

In the interview, the filmmaker begins to discuss the third Iron Man solo film in a good amount of detail starting around the 42-second mark. First, he speaks about the different side of Tony Stark that he explores in the film. Then, he brings up the Mandarin and the various problems that Marvel had incorporating the character into cinematic universe before talking about his line of thinking behind his version of the character. You can hear everything Black has to say in the video below:

After watching the interview, I just found everything the director had to say about the Mandarin so interesting. From bringing up that the name actually refers to the man behind the leader and actually means the king maker to the bit about the villain not even being a favorite but rather the one that’s been around the longest, it was all very cool to hear about because I thoroughly enjoyed the modernization of the character and the twist involved with it.

This has probably been discussed at length already, but what did you think about the Mandarin in ‘Iron Man 3’? Were you happy with Shane Black’s interpretation of the long-time villain or did you find that you were disappointed that it wasn’t as true as it could have been to the source material? Chime in with your thoughts in the comment section.