The Return of the Epic Film: Genre, Aesthetics and History in the 21st Century

With the success of Gladiator, both critics and scholars enthusiastically announced the return of a genre which had lain dormant for 30 years. Why did the epic come back, and why did it fall out of fashion? Are these the same kinds of epics as the 1950s and 60s, or are there aesthetic differences? Can we treat Kingdom of Heaven, 300 and Thor indiscriminately as one genre? Are non- Western histories like Hero and Mongol epics, too? Finally, what precisely do we mean when we talk about the return of the epic film, and why are they back?