MYNorthwest— Seattle sends two to Hollywood to create the next ‘MacGyver’.
He fended off a sulfuric acid leak with chocolate. He used a rosary and branches to make a catapult. He made a torpedo out of a beer keg. And now he will be a she.
Efforts are underway to revive ’80s pop-sensation “MacGyver” into a modern show featuring all the engineering and science that duct tape and a Swiss army knife can handle. But to make the show a new entity that will stand on its own, creators are casting the lead character as a woman and two Seattleites could be in line to help create modern, near-impossible feats for the new MacGyver to tackle.
“I am a geek. I’m not going to remotely hide that,” Nao Murakami told KIRO Radio’s Josh Kerns.
Murakami is one of two finalists in a competition organized, in part, by the show’s original creator Lee Zlotoff. In an online video, Zlotoff asks fans to send in science-centric plots and character ideas.
Just as the MacGyver of the ’80s inspired many to learn engineering and science, the new MacGyver will aim to inspire young women to enter the fields of science, technology, and engineering.
Murakami is a PhD candidate at the University of Washington. Craig Motlong, another Seattle local and a creative director at an advertising agency, also made it as a finalist. They will compete next week in Beverly Hills to get their ideas into the new show. The top five ideas, out of 12, will earn their creators $5,000 each, and a chance to consult on the show.
“One of the areas my research can be applied to is to, one day, bring a human to Mars, Jupiter, the asteroid belt and beyond,” Murakami said. “So that’s the kind of research that I do.”
Murakami’s background and the cause of encouraging more women to engage science motivated her to submit her idea.
“Hollywood media, a lot of times the scientist or nerds, they are portrayed as very stereotypically dorky, or they are somehow overly-sexualized. I’m trying to sort of break that stereotype,” she said.
To break that stereotype, Murakami proposed a female lead with a background in artificial intelligence and bio-mechanics who creates an android named Alex. In the meantime, criminals steal a massive computer that has stored the minds of the world’s greatest scientists. Those criminals then use that computer to cause quite a fuss.
“I had to write a plot line, which is basically a three-sentence summary of the show, similar to what you would see on Netflix show descriptions,” Murakami said. “And I also wrote a summary of a pilot episode.”
“Lucy is an expert in artificial intelligence in bio-mechanics, and she teams up with her android, Alex, to solve these crimes and Alex can access those minds of the scientists,” she said.
Murakami never watched the original episodes of MacGyver, but she felt she had a good idea of what could make a good science-based show.
“I watched sci-fi, crime shows, fantasy, all of them,” she said. “So I thought I had, from the viewer’s perspective, a good understanding of what would make a really good TV show.”
Motlong, the other Seattle finalist, proposed a different take for the new MacGyver. From shoe phones to laser pens, a female spy goes into the field and invents such quirky gadgets, in Motlong’s plot. It’s like combining Q and James Bond into a female lead.
The finalists will join the other 10 in Beverly Hills on July 28, where they will pitch their ideas. Five will be selected and paired with Hollywood producers who will help them format their ideas into five original screenplays.
Competition judges include leaders in science and business, as well as Hollywood heavyweights such as actress America Ferrera, Robert Orci (of Star Trek, Hawaii Five-O and Sleepy Hollow fame), and MacGyver creator Lee Zlotoff.
This story uses information originally reported by KIRO reporter Josh Kerns
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Did ya hear that the new Ghostbuster movie coming out in 2016 is now an all woman crew too?
Ridiculous. What 1980’s classic movie or TV show is next that will be remade and ruined by this political correct social justice craziness? Does Hollywood hate this era of entertainment because it happened during Reagan’s administration? Good grief.
What idiocy. Another Hollywood failure.
Although I much preferred Richard Dean Anderson in Stargate SG1 as Colonel Jack O’Neill (that’s with two LLs).
Too much hair in MacGiver
Why not a gay or transgendered character? That way they could shove perverted values on us?
It was the 1980s–everything was big.
Ok fair enough to have a woman but if she’s hot she’ll also have to have her period, go mentally delusional, and eat a bag of donuts while crying and driving on the wrong side of the road.
If not, she should wear thick glasses, have bald spots and a whisker or two.
I want to see a remake of “Roots” with the slaves all white and the slave traders and owners all mohammadmen.
I hope these Hollyweirdos take a bath with all this tripe.
…so they can force their libtard non-science bullshit like global warming and climate change on the intelligent people.
Losers.
Sooooo not an original thought or idea left in hollywood, huh?
SheGyver could make a vibrator from a V-8 engine.
She can turn water into Skinny Girl wine.
It’s McCaitlin..
Because every awesome show or movie or character has to be remade as black or a woman.
James Bond, Starbuck, Ghostbusters, Johnny Storm from Fantastic 4, Nick Fury, etc. and now McGyver.
That ol’ male and white privilege hast to be erased.
Can you say ‘BOMB’ ?
Dumbest idea since New Coke.
Why not a black, gay, muslim women?
Why not, since their amazing victory against the germans on Omaha beach they have been keeping the world safe and secure while wearing high heels and dancing backward!