You could believe that Sinbad could fight a skeleton because that's from a period in the past, a magical period. But if you had James Bond fighting a skeleton, it'd be almost comical.

Many people are under the delusion that I'm just a special-effects man, but I've worn many different hats in my day. On every film I've been involved in, I worked with the writer and producer. We really formulated those scripts. We tried to make films that were logical but still had the fantasy feel of it. I enjoy Aardman Animation's films with Wallace and Gromit, but they're obvious puppet films, whereas we tried to disguise it and make our effects characters in the films rather than obvious puppets.

I know pretty well in the broad sense what I'm going to do, because I have to know that when we shoot the live-action, so that it'll synchronize. Then I know pretty well when I get to the animation stage, what that scene requires.

The whole point of making a film is to tell a story. That seems to be forgotten. Many films today just rely on special effects and they have an explosion every five minutes. Who needs it? It's rather repetitious.

Today, they make films where you have to sit for an hour and a half and watch somebody in the process of dying and, for me, that's rather depressing. Films, in the good old days of the golden age of Hollywood, used to want to inspire people and give them uplift. You're paying good money to see a film, and you don't want to leave depressed!

I brought in the stories many times. I don't just do animation.

When you put a big budget into a film, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be a better picture, but it does help in creating new images on the screen.