How about Scwartzenegger's character in Predator? Remember the improvised woodland weaponry? The infrared-defeating mud paint? That flick rocked.

McGyver - The Movie. It's coming!

Burt Gummer rules! He has it all: gear, savvy, aplomb in handling any monster, PI attitude, humor. Even had a well-appointed bunker. Who'd have ever thought the worms would dare to come onto his turf. Fortunately mankind is still safe as long as we have people like Burt.

MacGyver was great to start. Then came his politics, especially re guns. He destroyed his own appeal.

John

Death Hunt starring Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin. Loosely based on the true episode of The Mad Trapper of Rat River. Albert Johnson was accused of tampering with traplines and killed a Mountie and gravely injured another in a shootout. He then took flight in one of the first manhunts to be covered by radio and the use of an aircraft. Johnson evaded a small army of pursuers, even scaling a sheer cliff in the dead of night. After an additional gunbattle in which he shot yet another trooper, Johnson was killed. He is buried in Yellowknife, still a man of unknown origin or intent. The movie is a wealth of real northern forest skills mixed in between the usual Hollywood bodycount and Angie Dickenson. You will also briefly see a modern highway with cars in one scene's background. Good practice for field observation skills <img src="images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

As I think about it, one of my favorite survival movies is the old 1960ish cold-war, post-nuke, survival thriller: Panic In The Year Zero. As Ray Milland drove his vacationing family homeward towards Los Angeles, they saw the telltale mushroom cloud overhanging what used to be LA. The movie explored the classic themes of evacuation (with a camping trailer in tow behind the family sedan), emergency acquisition of tools & supplies, relocating in the boondocks, dealing with various hostiles and neo-savages, survival medicine, and surviving in TEOTWAWKI.

An Honorable Mention also goes to the newly educated character played by Linda Hamilton at the end of The Terminator as she gassed up her Jeep fleeing into Mexico. Her newly acquired Ruger Security Six nestled in her console. The former nightclub waitress was on the road to save mankind from the future war of annihilation by the cyborgs.

John

I'm kicking myself for not thinking of Panic In Year Zero. I recorded it off Cinemax a year or so back. You're right, it covers a bunch of survival relevant topics. All you need to do is replace the somewhat dated premise (Soviet attack) with something a bit more contemporary and you'd still have a topical movie.

I also liked William Holden in The Earthling. Ricky Shroeder's parents get killed when their camper goes off a cliff in the Australian rain forest. Holden's character, on his way to die alone in the forest, finds the boy and teaches him how to survive the wilderness.

Ed

Hay hay, ever hear of Red Green, king of duct tape?

Well, yes all those guys can survive. But, I ask you, can they thrive, and always sum up the feeling of the the moment in the always humorous way Burt does? Do they go about their daily survival lives with such style, and over the top antics? <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> BURT GUMMER FOR PRESIDENT! (Disregard paranoia for government) Ted Nugent for Vice President! <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

>An Honorable Mention also goes to the newly educated character played by Linda Hamilton at the end of The Terminator as she gassed up her Jeep fleeing into Mexico. Her newly acquired Ruger Security Six nestled in her console. The former nightclub waitress was on the road to save mankind from the future war of annihilation by the cyborgs.<

Newly educated, and pregnant.

Interesting thought... but her determination in that scene became something a little scary in the next movie... and it wasn't a night club, just a thinly disguised Bob's Big Boy, typical fast-food burger joint. If it had been a night club, her uniform might have been... more interesting.

Well, I only know of McGuyver and Indiana Jones, and McGyver takes the cake!