The first sign of an upset came when the T-800 put on Elton John’s sunglasses. The mere suggestion that Arnie’s oh-so masculine, asexual Terminator killing machine would be seen wearing in the Pinball Wizard’s spangly, star-shaped cast-offs was the kind of joke only my Dad, having come from that era, and more importantly valuing such high camp as the height of ridicule, would have chuckled at. Indeed he did, groaning afterwards, but he was alone in the cinema full of the baggy jean-wearing skateboard kids who probably found Arnie’s subsequent oh-so late-Nineties “Talk to the hand” one-liner beyond their frame of reference as well. Why the hell was a blockbuster aiming its moldy wit at grown-ups in general, and my Dad in particular? Adults don’t go to the cinema. Or if they do, they wander into one by accident; they buy a ticket for arthouse films from foreign countries, Oscar bait, or romantic comedies. Not event movies. They’re for the kids, the teen demographic. Megabudget cinema belongs to those between the ages of 15 and 25.

At least that’s what Hollywood leads us to believe. Special effects, young protagonists, and juvenile source materials, like video games, comic books and Britney Spears songs, are what Hollywood deals from the bottom of the deck when playing for the big money. The studios eyes ain’t on the quality of their cards, or the seasoned players around the table. They focus their play aggressively on the youth market, and they achieve a juvenile flop that often turns a profit. Soulless confectionaries rule in the ten out of twelve screens in a multiplex at summer; adults can like it or lump it. Yet there’s still the anomaly of that awful Arnie / sparkly specs joke. It suggested that C2 Productions didn’t expect the young Americans to turn up in droves. It hints that they know their audience is a bit older and have different tastes. Creaky senses of humor perhaps, but another criteria of what makes a good moviegoing experience all the same. And on the whole they delivered what adults used to go see at their single screen when teen demographics didn’t exist: a sequel that regressed all the experimentation and punk aggression of its progenitors. Terminator 3’s emphasis on adventure and stunts rather than CGI setpieces seemed pleasantly out of place among that jolly green incoherent Hulk and Agent Smith’s heroic battle against the humans. T3 didn’t show off, it merely entertained. And it set a trend, followed by the equally lackluster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of Black Pearl (which stayed afloat due to one admittedly excellent 120-minute Keith Richard’s impression which... yes.. my Dad found hilarious), for tentpole movies with far simpler, healthier values than the “get a fantastic digital money shot in the teaser even if it doesn’t fit into the narrative” sensibilities of the last few years.

2003 is the year of the Dad Rock blockbuster. Not wanting to piss on anyone’s musical tastes, but “Dad Rock” is the term for aging rock stars’ dull later solo albums, accomplished, competent but nowhere near as cutting edge or modern as the work that first brought them to our attentions. Think Paul McCartney, Paul Weller, or even U2’s last album. In Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, Seabiscuit, The Last Samurai, and Return of the King one sees the return of the “classical” Hollywood values of spectacle, historicism, emotional engagement, and adventure. Sure they all may be self-consciously prestigious and somewhat unexperimental, but they use special effects as a storytelling tool rather than a selling point, characters for us to engage with as opposed to potential plastic action figures. Let’s look at Master and Commander as a case study: You really do wonder what rushes through those L.A. greenlighters heads (apart from a steady flow of overpriced mineral water and cocaine). I’m no expert—neither are they—but this is very bad risk assessment-wise, especially when the painstaking recreation of life on the Napoleonic open waves ends up costing both 20th Century Fox and Miramax a total of $135 million. Sure, the epic is back in fashion due to Gladiator, but I can’t remember a decent naval epic since the last Mutiny on the Bounty and even that was an anomaly. The closest we have gotten to this genre in recent years are the various pirate turkeys, submarine films, and Titanic. I know Cameron’s big bathtub was the most successful flick ever released, but don’t forget that it had ladies in it. Master and Commander is an all-male affair which is not likely to appeal to the amorously inclined of that second of criteria: the teenager. With no romance, no distinct human villain (see also Sauron, the depression, and Japanese modernization), an episodic narrative, and a distinct lack of derring-do, one could hardly say that Master and Commander is standard Hollywood product: A boat full of limeys (played by Aussies, Micks, and Scots) is chasing a “bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkey” French hardly screams of guaranteed millions in Arkansas. You could argue it’s based on a series of best-selling books, like current box office champions Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but those are cross-generational reading, while Patrick O’Brian’s highly detailed texts are a favorite among men in their fifties (also the estimated average readership of Seabiscuit, which was also a surprise nonfiction hit in its original form), hardly the group keeping the nachos and popcorn industries afloat.

Can Peter Weir be considered a hot director? His last film, The Truman Show, certainly made about the same amount as Master and Commander cost, but that was six years ago. His style is specifically obtuse, he recreates closed off environments with verisimilitude then attacks their moral, ethical center, addresses their belief systems—thought-provoking entertainments both epic and personal. Nothing here matches the frantic dash to stop the front-line attack that concludes his Gallipoli, no breathtaking crashes like in his compelling Fearless, but Master and Commander sees him marshal a huge cast to resonant effect. What about Samurai’s Ed Zwick? We have to go all the way back to Glory for a critical and commercial hit. And no offense, but New Line was economically insane to give the unassuming genius that is Peter Jackson all that budget and trust going by the earnings of any of his previous horror films. Yet they all bring an unobtrusive, comfortable brand of filmmaking that allows characterization and plot to flow organically.

Ten summers ago there were only two event releases: Jurassic Park and Last Action Hero. Both, in hindsight, were reasonable entertainments but Arnie’s flick died due to a combination of a restrictive rating despite less actual violence than its opponent, a critical backlash despite an equal amount of thrills and self awareness as today’s big hitters, and a muddled marketing campaign. The result was that Hollywood focused on developing franchises from recognizable properties and promoting the groundbreaking CG effects that were Spielberg’s key successes with Jurassic Park. With less concentration on star power, more effects-oriented films were made leading to saturation in 1998 when too many event movies were released back-to-back, with Godzilla being the most obvious casualty. Titanic was moved to a winter slot which proved hugely fortuitous. Suddenly Cameron’s disaster flick had no heavyweight competition and an adult audience who buy tickets in the daytime when children are in school (i.e. not the summer). The knock-on effect of 1998 since is that the release date is now paramount in the high burn world of the blockbuster. Not only do the studios want to make as much money in the opening weekend through hype, they also know that in a fortnight’s time an equally attention grabbing film will be released. Word of mouth no longer counts, and if your FX department does not have the work completed by the date you have locked, so as not to clash and compete with X-Men and Charlie’s Angels, then your film may have to wait six months to two years for a viable window. Quality has taken another dive due to this even more restrictive time limitation imposed by Hollywood on itself, resulting in joyless excursions into narrative confusion and poor bloodless chaos (Ang Lee’s Hulk). Samurai, Rings, Master, and Seabiscuit can all be seen as alternatively tapping into the market that Titanic rediscovered. They are recreating the pleasures of a more traditional form of moviegoing; instead of product placement they fit ideas between the battle sequences. These are films that’ll survive with us until bank holidays in our dotage, modern-day equivalents of The Searchers (1957) and Spartacus (1960). And yet should we really be so happy that films are being made with no desire to appear at the cutting edge of their craft? Is the nostalgic nature of these Dad Rock epics good for cinema in the long run? What does it say about us that our best populist cinema is not forward looking or a document of our times? Will our luck hold out, will 2003 merely be the first step towards a new Golden Age of Hollywood where king’s ransoms are spent smartening up scripts as opposed to dumbing them down? I doubt it, but let’s celebrate the fact that some suit-wearing idiot savants in Hollywood completely forgot the criteria this season.