At a time when summer movies seem uniquely capable of consolidating the cultural discourse, our Evolution of the Modern Blockbuster series looks back to the summers, and summer movies, of 1984 and 1989, when MTV editing, post-Boomer cynicism and other cultural sea changes converged to shape the summer blockbuster we all know and can’t avoid. Below is part one; parts two through five are forthcoming later this week:

San Antonio-based film critic Aaron Aradillas is a contributor to The House Next Door, a contributor to Rockcritics.com and the host of “Back by Midnight,” an Internet radio program about film and television.