One film critic back in the early days said "It's a pity Mr. Harryhausen didn't animated the actors, too."

I still go to the conventions, and I like to hear the point of view of people today. I'm a little afraid they're being brainwashed by this new pop-culture. I think it's not really elevating our lives like it did in the good old days of Hollywood, where you had a happy ending. They used to criticize happy endings, but really, what's the point of going to a film if you have to come out hating your fellow man?

There’s a strange quality in stop-motion photography, like in King Kong, that adds to the fantasy. If you make things too real, sometimes you bring it down to the mundane.

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.

Animation had been used only for things like King Kong and the destruction of cities, which was very popular in the 1950s. I got tired of destroying cities. I destroyed New York, I destroyed San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Rome, and Washington. I was looking for a new outlet, and I came across the Sinbad legends.

One film critic back in the early days said "It's a pity Mr. Harryhausen didn't animated the actors, too."

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.