Well, after looking through the "How would you have ended MacGyver?" thread, I've been more interested in how would you continue MacGyver.
I know there are logistics to deal with. I know Richard Dean Anderson has pretty much stated that he's not interested in going back to MacGyver, and if he did, it'd have to be with the right kind of humor. So I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing or not.
But let's just say hypothetically that MacGyver was to be continued in some form- starting in the present, April 2007 and onward. And it might be continued in any format.
That said, how would you continue MacGyver?
Would you like to see MacGyver turned into a theatrical feature movie?
If so, expound on that. What would the plotline be and who would star? And for the sake of argument, let's say that maybe Richard Dean Anderson would agree to return as MacGyver in a serious movie. Where would you go from there?
Or maybe it would be better to see MacGyver back as a TV show. Again there's the questions- Would RDA return as MacGyver? Would it focus on SAM? Would a show focus on new characters altogether working at Phoenix? With maybe cameos from RDA and others? (Hmm- that premise reminds me a bit of "Team Knight Rider" )
Would it be easier to envision a MacGyver cartoon? How would that work? Would you see RDA voicing MacGyver? Maybe that would be easier on his schedule.
Or maybe you'd prefer to see MacGyver on Broadway!
(That'd make for an interesting musical.)
Or how about MacGyver as a comic book? That could be fun.
What about a MacGyver video game? I'd love to see a PC game finally made. And even a video game is a way to further the storyline.
And I'm glad for Mark Daniel's "MacGyver on Ice" book, but I wish it had been an ongoing series. Lots of other TV shows have successful original book series- notably Star Trek in all its forms, as well as Quantum Leap and Saved By the Bell- and there's others still.
A MacGyver prose novel series could be really fun.
Or maybe you're a wealthy philanthropist and wants to create the ultimate MacGyver tribute- starting a real life Challengers' Club in your neighborhood- or even the Phoenix Foundation!

I'm sure there's probably other things. Anyway, this is just to think about here. Maybe some of these would work or maybe none of them would. Maybe all of them would work!
Let's hear some ideas for continuing MacGyver in some media or another.

I'd love to see a theatrical movie starring Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver, of course. But a book series and comic book series would be great too- and a cool video game!
I could basically see a big showdown between MacGyver and Murdoc, with RDA and Michael Des Barres returning to their roles. I'd be fine with Dalton James having a role as Sam on there- and including Jack Dalton, perhaps.
And definitely a tribute to Dana Elcar, including at least some reference to Pete. (Though I'd prefer to not actually have Pete dead in the movie.)
And maybe a love interest of some sort (though MacGyver of course won't be interested in committing )- and this could be someone totally new at Phoenix. Unless you just really wanted to bring back Elyssa Davalos as Nikki Carpenter.

And I could see Murdoc somehow hiring himself out to a terrorist group- or maybe that's what HIT's turned into- on a global scale.
And MacGyver could even lead a Phoenix team to stop him from taking over the world, basically.

What are your ideas? (For a movie or anything else I listed above- or something totally different!)
(And then let's flesh them out a bit more in regards to plot and all.)

I'd love to see a comic book based on the original MacGyver series.

But I'd like ot see a new TV show too. I think the Young MacGyver was on the right track, but it needs to be SAM not some nephew that no-one ever know about before.

I'd like to see SAM working for the phoenix foundation and RDA having guest spots, along the lines of grandpa Harry, but maybe a little more frequently, with SAM going to him for advice, and even MacGyver getting tangled up with Phoenix work occasionally

Pete would be retired early in the show, but would remain as an occasional "resource" with his DXS links and be replaced by Nikki Carpenter. Maybe Pete could continue for a while as a mentor until Nikki is comfortable in the new role.

I like your idea for a movie.. with MacGyver going after Murdoc, to stop some diabolical plot.

I think a movie should be based on season 3-4, that seems to be when the show really hit it's peek. Obviously it should be brought up to date, but I think it should be like a season 3-4 episode.. MacGyver should be doing something with the phoenix foundation, not being a social worker like he was in later seasons.

This post has been edited by Rockatteer on 27 April 2007 - 02:13 PM

Now that sounds more like it. I was interested in the "Young MacGyver" tv show- but from what I saw of the Pilot- I think I'm just as glad it wasn't made. Stick with the established characters, like Sam, and I could see it happening. I like your idea there, Rock. That would be pretty cool...though I suppose Dalton James would be "too old" to attract the younger demographics networks might want- but really, if they want this to work- they should appeal to the slightly older crowd that remembers "MacGyver" when it was first airing- and would appreciate the continuity being maintained- besides, Dalton James isn't that terribly old!

They could always do a 90210 and say he's younger than he really is.

I’d like some books please! Books based on the MacGyver we all know and love. That way the stories can star RDA in my mind.
MacGyver on TV on film wont be the same without RDA. Not to be mean to Rick but even if he wanted to come back as MacGyver it wouldn’t seem right to me. Not just due to his age but also the way he looks now I think Jack O’Neill when I see him. If they did a MacGyver show I think it should be around Sam, but not as a kid. I can’t stand some of that angsty teenage stuff that’s on these days. If they need that to attract the younger demographic they’ll loose me. MacGyver and Jack Dalton appearing every so often has an appeal to me but it would have to be for a good plot reason. I’d want Sam to be like his dad and not have to come running home for help to MacGyver too much.
I like your plot idea for a movie with Murdoc and terrorists threatening the world but it seems too James Bond for me. I liked how in MacGyver you can have exciting adventures in a local setting where the outcome doesn’t effect the world at large but it still is exciting. Also, I’d prefer an adventure like “National Treasure” or like MacGyver has had in the past with the Legend of the Holy Rose. I just can’t get enough of treasure hunting! Again though, I think it would have to be Sam but he should have learnt (on his bonding motorbike trip with his dad) MacGyvers way of thinking so he won’t use guns, kill bad guys and will use his brains to get him out of sticky situations.

Uhm...whats 90210 mean?

Beverly Hills 90210 is a TV show about teenagers at high school.. except most of the actors where mid 20's to mid 30's in age.

I read that as ninety thousand two hundred and ten. with the Beverly Hills bit on it I know the show with unusually old teenagers in it that you mean.

Basically I always felt positive about my first MacGyver story to be the perfect scenario for a movie. I later rewrote it and still thinking about a third version. Anyway I think we all agree if the situation had to be a MacGyver/Murdoc thing. Just like Superman faced Lex Luthor in Superman Returns.
So how would I handle this? In the first version it was about MacGyver getting married with Maria Romburg and was about to get settled. During the wedding night she gets kidnapped by Deborah and MacGyver assembles a whole team (Jack, Sam, Pete, Nikki, Willis Lt. Rhome, Lt. Murphy and Capt. Kyle) to go and rescue Maria in Brazil. Also Penny Parker is one of the captives. So MacGyver and his compagnions gets tangled in a dark plot by Deborah, Zito and Murdoc. In the end it's all a set up to lure MacGyver to them and kill him.

In the second version it began when MacGyver comes back home from his assignment in Turkey (Eye of Osiris) and receives the news that Maria hasn't come back yet from Brazil, so with Jack and Pete at his side, he travels to Brazil to get her out. Just like in the first version Willis and Nikki are part of it. Sam and the police are left out of the story. For Sam it sounds logic since it was set during the sixth season. Further I'd say this story has a good moment where in we follow Maria on her assignment in Brazil and how she got caught. It's like tying the loose ends. The villains are the same except they're aided by Piedra and Axminster.
In comparison with the first version this story has also much more MacGyverisms. This version is also darker and has a more psychological touch to it when MacGyver is given hallucinogen and starts to freak out. And the ending is actually WAAAAY over the top with Murdoc and him going into space and fight it out over there.

Now I'm brainstorming over a third and final version with MacGyver just living his life as he did in the series and working for the Phoenix Foundation. Sam's an option, I'm not fully out on that. But maybe it would be better if Maria is replaced by another (new) character and I'm also thinking of leaving Deborah out of the picture. Bringing back characters out of the dead is actually pretty un-original. I think a cooperation between Murdoc and Zito is interesting. Or maybe better to have Murdoc alone.
I think that the best idea would be is to give the audience the first and third season feel back. Little bit of secret agent again with plenty of MacGyverisms and a third season feel to have Jack, Murdoc and Nikki in it.

Now the stars. That's easy the original stars should be in them but in case that original cast has to be replaced. Like I said: Kevin Bacon, Sean Bean or Josh Holloway for MacGyver. Josh Holloway depends on it if Sam's in it or not. Sean Bean would be a better choice than to have Sam in it. Kevin Bacon... well it depends on things would work out.
For Pete I think there's only man who can replace him (however Dana Elcar is irreplaceable) and that's Don S. Davis.
For Jack, Murdoc and Nikki I can't think of any replacements right now. Than again why should I? Bruce McGill never had any major roles in movies, just showing up here and there, Murdoc and Nikki same thing.
And for filmcomposers I option for Ken Harrison of course or Randy Edelman (he has some experience with big movies) Or if I had to choose a really big composer I'd go for James Newton Howard. Just listen to "Vespertilio" of Batman Begins.

In your dreams, sister. But it would be interesting though to have MacGyver in it's original wrapping back.

MacGyver as a cartoon? Maybe if Matt Groening does the drawing and The Simpsons writers team writes the scenario's.
On Broadway? No way! Musicals? Please!!

That sounds cool.

Yeah me too. 24, Lost, Prison Break and Indiana Jones got there own ongoing book series. MacGyver should've gotten one too.

Read the above. Just I never saw Nikki as a possible love interest. OK, Starkoss said he would learn to love her but the way I understood it was love her as friends.

Murdoc didn't just want to kill for money no more. Killing for money and power!!!
Seeing HIT as a terrorist group on global scale seems interesting.
MacGyver could do that, but I think he would do it on his own. But in a movie that would just be 'the old wipe out the world ploy'. - John Hannah in The Mummy Returns.

I agree on that.

There are wigs you know.

Why not?

Yeah, Mac, Jack and Pete together again. Sam and Nikki can be placed in the story.

Like I said "The old wipe out the world ploy".

I'm against that! If it was just meant for the series, another two parted adventure I'm all for that. But not as feature movie. That's like taking the easy way out. If a treasure hunting becomes the concept of the film... That's like rechewing Lost Treasure of Atlantis.

I think Sam would be that wise by now.

That's there zipcode.

The only option that would provide us with a quality of MacGyver would be a book series.

That gets both a and a

I'm a brother, actually.


Good thoughts on the movie ideas. I'd love to see all those characters back in the movie (Rhome, Kiley, Murphy, Maria, Willis, etc.) - just don't know if it would ever happen.
But who knows? The point of this thread was to think about what you'd ideally like to see happen, not if it's really plausible or not.

Well, it wouldn't have to be Nikki. I could see them together, but I could also see MacGyver with Maria Romburg perhaps- as long as the female fans didn't have another uprising.
Of course, it could just be someone new altogether.

Right- it seems like Murdoc joining up with a terrorist group actually bent on taking over the world would be the next logical step up for him to obtain money and power. And if anyone was crazy enough to do it- it'd be him. But it's definitely true that the "old wipe out the world ploy"- as you said has been done before. So have treasure hunting movies. And yes, there's some similarities to James Bond type plots, but I wouldn't mind that. (Of course, I also love James Bond, so...)
Hmmm- well, I think I'm pretty stuck on having a movie include Murdoc in some way.
I was just thinking that it could be possible to have MacGyver battle a natural disaster (like say, global warming!) where there's no real villian, but that probably wouldn't work well for a feature movie. It worked fine as "Kill Zone", but I don't know if I want to see "MacGyver and an Inconvenient Truth- The Movie"!
But maybe you could have some kind of environmental disaster as part of the plot that Murdoc and HIT have cooked up. Maybe you could even have it could go way out of control and wind up at the end with MacGyver temporarily working with Murdoc to stop HIT once and for all before they destroy California or whatever. (Again, the teamup's been done in "Halloween Knights" but it might be interesting to see again.)
Another idea would be to have Murdoc (or someone from HIT) infiltrate Phoenix Foundation and actually plot to bring it to ruin. If we're setting this movie after the series, then that would definitely draw MacGyver back to Phoenix to find out what's going on.
Oh- one more brainwave. What if they did the teamup thing with MacGyver and Murdoc (but only at the end of the movie- after they've been fighting throughout the movie)- and Murdoc actually finally dies at the end of the movie- by making a sacrifice to stop HIT, stop their environmental disaster and in the process dying himself? I think that could be interesting- maybe even have a final scene with MacGyver trying to save Murdoc and Murdoc finally admitting that he really does have a deep respect for MacGyver- not just as a worthy target, but also because of all the good he does. "Maybe if I'd known you when I was younger, things might have turned out different for me." I could see Murdoc saying something like that. That could be a pretty powerful ending- wow, like Darth Vader finally turning back to the Light and becoming Anakin Skywalker once more at the end of "Return of the Jedi"

Oh- so many ideas out there. I so wish a MacGyver movie could really happen...
or a comic book, video game, TV show, Web toon, daily newspaper strip, more developed action figure line, anything!

I think the MacGyver/Murdoc thing should remain personal and not involve the world.

Sounds cool for the environmental thing, but I think you'd need a smart script for it and sounds like story first for the big part of the film and than the action. It sounds MacGyverismless in some ways. MacGyver and Murdoc working together wouldn't work for the film.

Sounds good.

Again sounds good but that's like the good cop/bad cop thing. They always becomes friends at the end of the film.
Murdoc respecting MacGyver? In a way, yes, but he would never ever admit it. He's too "evil" for it. He already said MacGyver is "incredible clever" but so is he.

I read that as ninety thousand two hundred and ten. with the Beverly Hills bit on it I know the show with unusually old teenagers in it that you mean.

This is so sad, but I knew instantly what this meant....*sigh* i loved that show...

I would like to see MacGyver books. Lots and lots of them. Some involving a deepening friendship between Mac and Nikki, more Murdoc shenanigans, international missions, etc...

Hi there : It is so very funny that you were mentioning about MacGyver coming back. I was thinking the same thing. Only then , it occurred to me that it would be different on account Dana Elcar would not be around.
And even tho ' they didn't use Dana in the two movies ( and he was alive at that time ) , it would be nice to have some sort of tribute to him during the movie. Perhaps, do some flash-back segment where MacGyver was remembering all the good times that he had with Pete, from the time they met ( while chasing Murdoc ) up to the last time . But would Richard Dean Anderson really go for it ? I do not really know, since he seems to be pre-occupied with Stargate SG-1 . And the Stargate : Atlantis movies at the moment. But as I was saying, it would be really cool and very nice to see him doing that sort of thing, again. I would certainly pay whatever money to go and see that, or would it be on my t.v. That means whatever means of seeing this , I would certainly love to. My answer is " yes" .
Sincerely,
Kate Mackay

Maybe a movie could revolve around Murdoc killing Pete and MacGyver hunting down Murdoc to bring him to justice for Pete's murder.

I don't think I would want to see RDA do the movie roll unless he has the mullet hair, because as someone already said.. short gray hair equal Jack o'Niell

Dying his hair blond like RDA did in the commercial worked well for MasterCard...no reason why he couldn't do that in a MacGyver movie.
(And it wouldn't have to be a mullet- though I'm cool with short hair like the first season or the mullet of later seasons.)

That's a very good idea!

If the movie really is set in the present I somehow can't picture Mac still having his mullet. Whenever seeing a not so young anymore man with still long hair I think it just doesn't fit. It only works for young men (same goes for elderly women, when seeing her from behind with long hair you think she's young and then you see her face and are shocked)


I don't think that only the short grey hair makes O'Neill. I think it's his attitude, his facial expressions. Usually I can distinguish between Mac and Jack without any trouble, Mac is much more smiling for example. He also is not so suspicious of others all the time like Jack.

But there was one time, in the episode with Penny's ghost house, where Mac is standing before the door which had closed itself and he has the jacket over his head since it's raining and is shouting for her to open the door. There he suddenly had a very special facial expression so that for a second I thought: How comes O'Neill into this episode?!?

Anyone else knowing what I'm talking about?

Yes I do... there was alot of Jack O'Neill lurking about in MacGyver... long before he was a twinkle in anyone's eye, there were hints of what was to come, and it's fun watching Mac and having a Jack O'Neill moment! Certain facial expressions, mannerisms, etc... Because when you act, you don't PRETEND to be a character... you ARE the character - the character is YOU. So Mac and Jack exist together inside RDA at any given moment, even though Jack O'Neill wasn't yet invented when Mac was on - he was alive - in a sense waiting to be born - in RDA (and he's still is in there - as is Mac).

2 characters (at least) in 1 body... oy vey!

Yeah, Mac also said a few lines I can picture O'Neill saying, too.


Question is, now that RDA put so much of himself into Jack O'Neill, would he even be able to find the "Mac-voice" again after all this time?

For Mac's hair in a movie I think the fifth season mullet or the movies mullet'll do. They're the same, just a little more gray in the movies. Or maybe seventh season but I don't know how that would look on him at this age.

Wasn't that brown?

I think it would be cool in the movie, that when it starts his hair is brown and short and slowly during the movie changes over to blond and longer.

Than what about Sean Connery in The Medicine Man? That perhaps wasn't a mullet but he had shoulder length hair.

What's with all the talk about his hair? Who has the same hair style they had twenty years ago? (and isn't laughed at behind their back)

If a quality movie ever got made, I wouldn't care how they did his doo.

If I were to envision MacGyver Today...

It would be contemporary... as in the same number of years have passed in the show as it has since the last episode. MacGyver, after completeing collage to receive a PHD in Physics, finds himself called upon by his government to become a kind of traveling Ambassador. He gets assigned to do things like inspecting nuclear powerplants, renewing treaties, being forced to wear tuxedos to formal events from which he escapes at the earliest opportunities, and travel all over the world. He runs into a lot of people he met during his DXS years, some in high positions and some as low as you can get.

Diplomatic immunity adds some extra fun as Mac gets into all sorts of trouble trying to get to the bottom of crimewaves, government corruption, natural disasters, and mayhem. Mac finds a helpful resourse in the Phoenix Foundation, which would now be Directed by his own son, SAM.

RDA would have to be available for the show, 'cause I can't picture anyone else. He can grow out the hair as long as you like, but I don't touch the colour. Go with silver... it is excessively charming!

Because that's the mullet we're talking about.

Not me. I was bald twenty years ago. I'll re-answer the question after the next twenty years.

Me neither as long it's the mullet.

Don't know that one...

Yep that's the one.

Well, what do you want me to say now?

Nothing.

I always wanted them to do a "MacGyver Comes out of Retirement" type movie - some situation where MacGyver is travelling or something and gets pulled into a crazy situation (like an "aw, not again" sort of thing) - I really think that is the only way it would work on film. Rich is just irreplacable as mac (at least for me) - so much of the charm of mac's character is his general tone/attitude/manner of expression.

I like the idea of a book series as well - a la hardy boys et al.

I would eagerly devour a book series!