Guillermo Del Toro’s game project may have gotten the axe from THQ during the publisher’s blood-letting this year, but the director naturally has new projects in the works. Rise of the Guardians will be out soon and that gave the Del Toro a chance to wax philosophically about what makes good stories for kids:

Well, I think that one of the things is to actually try and create a sense of darkness in the tale. A lot of people just make this sanitized super happy-go-lucky, “bright sunshine and clouds” type of childhood movies. And you really need an element of the dark in it. In the case of Kung Fu Panda 2, we really came up with a psychotic, sociopathic villain. In the case of [Rise of the] Guardians, we have Pitch, which is an incredibly sophisticated and articulate guy that tries to control your fear. In the case of Puss in Boots, we had a bad guy who was Humpty, who was capable of changing and capable of doing a good action at the end. He was incredibly neurotic.

And I think that people don’t acknowledge that kids have all these sides. Kids are neurotic, kids deal with fear, kids are confronted by really hostile impulses from the adults around them and the other kids, and you know, movies should acknowledge all this and create these fables that help them deal with those things.

Wait, what? Kids are people too with complex emotions and rich inner life? This is totally bonkers.