It is 35 years old and has only just begun. We can call its history a prehistory, that dawn era when chaos rules and early lifeforms are born, do battle and die. In these epochs no one knows where evolution is going. And cultural creationists – those who think artistic advances are born perfect and plonked on earth by an all-knowing divinity – don’t believe in evolution anyway.

Sit back and see. CGI (computer-generated imagery) is the shape of cinema to come. And directors such as James Cameron, George “Star Wars” Lucas and Pixar’s John Lasseter, who have seen its potential, are the film industry’s innovators. In the catchphrase of a Hollywood actor who became a US president, Ronald Reagan: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”