How Far Does Six Million Dollars Go These Days?

Cue methodic drum beat and space rocket explosion sounds:

NASA One: “It looks good at NASA One.”

B-52 Pilot: “Roger. BCS arm switch is on.”

NASA One: “OK, Victor.”

B-52 Pilot: “Landing rocket arm switch is on.”

B-52 Pilot: “Here comes the throttle. Circuit breakers in.”

Steve Austin: “We have separation.”

Chase plane: “Roger.”

B-52 Pilot: “Inboard and outboards are on.”

B-52 Pilot: “I’m coming forward with the sidestick.”

NASA One: “All looks good.”

B-52 Pilot: “Ah, roger.”

Steve Austin: “I’ve got a blowout — damper three!”

Chase plane: “Get your pitch to zero.”

Steve Austin: “Pitch is out! I can’t hold altitude!”

B-52 Pilot: “Correction. Alpha hold is off. Trim selectors. Emergency!”

Steve Austin: “FlightCom! I can’t hold it! She’s breaking up, she’s break ... !"


Now the narrator. Strange electronic noises. Drum beat keeps building:


Narrator: “Steve Austin: astronaut. A man barely alive.”

Oscar Goldman: “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before.

Better.

Stronger.

Faster.”


In comes the music:


DAAAAA-NAAAAA-NAAAAHHHH ... DA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NAAAAAHHHH ... DOWWWW-DOW-DOW-DA-DOWWWWWWW ....





I really don't remember a whole lot about the Bionic Man.

It was kind of like "Super Friends." I remember that I loved it, but I was just a little too young to really have it memorized (unlike "Star Wars," "Superman," "Transformers," "G.I. Joe" etc ...)

I know I had the big doll whose arm opened up to show a bunch of mechanical stuff. You could look through the back of his head through his one bionic eye.




The sound effect when he did something bionic was unique and strangely cool. Lee Majors had one of those archetypcal '70s hero looks. He had a real pimpin' outfit. A smooth bossman. And something about fighting Big Foot or something.

That's about it.

But I recently (don't ask me why) downloaded a sound clip of the theme for the "Six Million Dollar Man," and that's all it takes for me to know that they need to make a "Six Million Dollar Man" movie.

Even if it costs more than six million dollars.

You know, six million dollars still sounds like a lot to me. Maybe it would cost more to make the movie than it would to make the man, but damnit, you can't change the name.

Television re-makes don't always work out. OK, they almost never don't work out.

But this one would. I know it.

(Unless they tried to make it into a comedy starring Jim Carrey. Big mistake).

I can't give you a screenplay -- but I can sketch out a few basic guidelines.

First of all, the intro music and the chatter stays (except maybe I'd "de-'70s-itize" the music right at the end with just the slightest alteration that makes it sound less "Hawaii Five-O-ish").

The thicker hair would stay, even though Steve Austin is an OSI military man. No high-and-tight. It would be a big mistake to streamline him wearing all "Matrix" black and sporting an ear jack. No fat ties or trooper 'staches, though.

He'd experience a mid-'80s Captain America inner struggle. Something about loving his country but questioning it, too. He might even quit like Captain America did. Bryan Singer would pull this off perfect.

There would be a slick Oscar Goldman character. Real slick. Somebody like ... like ... I don't know, you know.

I can't think of a good villain, but he needs to be all yin-yang. The mirror image of Steve Austin. They hate each other because of their familiarity. He should be former military. Rogue. And he'd have to open up a can o' corn on Steve. He could be stripped out like "The Terminator," leaving him to be repaired with even better features, kind of like the later episodes of "Knight Rider" when K.I.T.T. got all pimped out.

The government would have to be sketchy and conniving. But pragmatic. Like it allows us to live our lives the way we want without having to worry about how it's done.

Steve would need to have a central weakness. Like, he's strong and can see real good and can run real fast in slow motion, but he can't repel bullets and it's not like all that mechanical stuff made him any smarter. He depends on technology, so it has to screw him somehow. Love-hate.

The bionic sound -- that electronic grinding effect -- has to stay. Doing that keeps just enough camp to keep it fun and forces us to either suspend belief or walk out of the theater early, in disgust, like a neurotic, punk-ass geek.

And there has to be a Bionic Woman. And her name is Jaime Sommers. But only at the end. She's being constructed at the end.

And we won't see her in full effect until the next movie.

And they'll end up having to fight each other.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself.