The Real McTeag

Welcome to The Real McTeag; coming to you to you from my lifelong hometown of Queens, New York.

2022 marks my tenth year of writing (and fourth year of actually editing) this blog. The movie and TV reviews that I’ve indulged in were always just more fun to write. Politics have become stigmatizing and boring- something the writers of Star Trek Discovery seem unaware of.

In the immortal words of Bill Pullman in the classic sci-fi movie Independence Day “We can’t be divided by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests.” This includes “Is this movie worth my time and money?”

Since 2012 I’ve stumbled across some weird and interesting stuff and that can still figure in from time to time. This may be the top place to find information on the so called cargo cults- analyzed through Star Trek! So sci-fi and love of pop culture has always been part of this journey you’ve taken a moment to observe. I’ve met one serial and one spree killer. So no doubt about it I live in America and this is definitely the 21st Century.

These 10 years have changed me. The world changed too. Politics went from adversarial to cut throat and mean.

At the same time as political discourse became despicable Star Wars and Star Trek just fall off a cliff. The classic franchises are riding trends too hard and self destructing. Then comic book movies have also joined the punchline at Jonestown! The DCEU and the MCU is an uncertain place where a good movie is almost as likely as a bad. The movies are routinely marketed wrong or deceptively- which can be wither negligible, a disaster or ironically create a great Hatewatch.

I was angered by terrible movies like Into Darkness, The Last Jedi and especially the horrors visited on all of us by Star Trek Discovery and its conjoined NuTrek twins. Its patronizing and bigoted. Its cynical and terrible. I don’t need a pat on the head from Tilly to know whats right!

Storytelling in general seemed a shambles and worst of all politics was ALL OVER the supposed escapism. While Star Trek had a political element, but it was never so on the nose. It also was housed inside a better story.

Star Wars declined for the same reasons. The MCU went sideways and DC was always a roll of the dice. I felt much more invested in thinking about what makes a good Batman Movie than any new political wrinkle and i started to really achieve the goal is set in 2012- to be a better writer and have some people read it.

I do my takes on my trip to the theater and review the movie as best as a one time viewer can. the standard there is “Did I enjoy myself in the theater and why?” This is now a spotty opportunity due to COVID.

The second kind of review is more comprehensive and is a Movie Analysis and Review. When i stream anything I can rewatch it and do a deeper analysis.

With the subtitles on, at super slow speed, you see things and make realizations that you miss the first time. For instance- in Loki  most characters names only appear in the subtitles. Writers now use internet leaks to explain what they forgot to put in their movies. Some projects like Star Trek Discovery rely on bloggers talking down to us about what we missed. “Ten Easter Eggs You Were Too Dumb to See” is now just a trope. This is bad filmmaking enabling itself through Social Media.

Nothing has revealed writers mistakes more than seeing something like “Triumphant Music Playing” during a blown attempt at creating hero. For instance- this description is shown while and the most triumphant music played in The Last Jedi is when Luke is fishing. This truly makes no sense. It confirmed to me Rian Johnson was just putting any images he wanted to see on screen and going through the motions with everything else.

In Star Wars especially the score is almost a character in itself. George Lucas used it geniously. So did Gene Roddenberry. These days it’s almost a lost art.

Well, this probably means I’ll be forever banned from Disneyland now because their bad new content is so bad is begs to be reviewed and I will be ON THAT as much as I can stomach.

I encourage you to comment on and critique my work!

Thanks again for reading and if you like it? Consider Following! The official Twitter for this page is @captainteag. you can follow me there for new posts and random observations.

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Cheers!

– Mick

12-30-21