RDA Forum

Juliette wrote: ↑Fri May 04, 2018 10:24 am
So to me the experiment is made of vinegar and dry ice (which is what you can find inside the fire extinguisher!) which he put in the bucket in the kitchen, to which he adds baking soda at the moment he needs to create the smoke

Dry ice is actually solid CO2 at an extremely low temperature and goes straight from solid to gas at ambient temperature, therefore creating smoke.
We have another flaw here since it should have been slightly smoking right from the moment it was taken out of the fire extinguisher
Since Mac wants lots of smoke, he combines two smoking elements: the dry ice and the baking soda+vinegar, and the three elements together smoke a lot and enough to allow them to escape


In short, this MacGyverism is made of vinegar, baking soda and dry ice

Hmm.. it does make more sense that the fire extinguisher is important somehow - he doesn't pick it up accidentally. I always thought that a CO2 fire extinguisher had pressurized LIQUID CO2 in it, that would just blend with the atmosphere when released. I did more searching, and it turns out this is true, but I found several youtube videos showing how you can "make dry ice" by using a CO2 fire extinguisher, so that is probably what Mac was supposed to have done (even though we don't see the bag that you would need). And yes, it would start making "smoke" (vapor) immediately, ESPECIALLY if he added the vinegar to it in the kitchen - not to mention that he shouldn't have put the box in the bucket along with it. But dry ice "smoke" flows down, and stays near the floor, so I suppose the point of the foamy vinegar/baking soda reaction was to make it more smoky and airborne.

In any case, I think you are right, the smokescreen was meant to be created with vinegar, baking soda, and CO2 from the fire extinguisher. I suppose the question would be, was it just bad editing, or did they intentionally cut out all the other steps because of timing, or was it a deliberate plan to "leave out one ingredient" as they often did for safety so that kids at home would not start playing around with fire extinguishers? I'm thinking perhaps the latter - in the days before you could just google it and follow step-by-step instructions on youtube.

But thank you! I'll include the three ingredients in the MacGyverism section.

Kate

I agree with you on the "leaving something out" Kate. It would not be a good thing to encourage children to dismantle a fire extinguisher and handling dry ice can be very dangerous if not done properly. Severe burns can occur from touching it with bare hands which kids may not realize. Adding the baking soda to add "lift" to the fog makes sense to me as well.

Yes maybe they didn't have enough time, so they didn't take time to explain the chemical reaction (only the vinegar is cited).
It was probably more about the visual aspect of the trick, and indeed a good way to prevent people from really trying it at home.

I know a little about dry ice because my best friend had a science project to do for school and he had to create a small tornado in a box and he used the dry ice smoke to reveal the spinning air. I saw him experiment at home and it was really cool to watch!

If you listen carefully when Mac and Dave are digging the grave in the Last Stand, Dave's watch bleeps at one point. Not a nitpick though, but maybe interesting to look out for.

This is about the opening Gambit.
The soldiers' cars and the whole frontier is far away from reality, but that's no problem. This was not meant as a historical work.
But here: A big bug for our collection:
The signboard at the small grey frontier house you see when Mac and Bannister managed to cross the border and the camera looks back again.
The signboard says "SIE BETRETEN DEUTSCHE BUNDESREPUBLIK" (sorry, cannot post screenshots).
This means: You enter Western Germany.
Either they got confused on set where to put this sign, or they installed the frontier houses the wrong way
[/quote]

Kate, I've got a small Oooops for your collection. It's from Deathlock.

When Pete is electrocuted by his phone we see him falling backwards down.
The scene ends when we see him lying on the floor. Miracously he has suddenly a small pillow under his head.

But only later, after some time MacGyver and Karen find him lying there and Karen puts then the pillow under his head. So they mixed a "lying unconscious" scene from a later shot into the episode.

Anja

In the movie Lost Treasure of Atlantis, when Mac jumps on the roof of the car he breaks the windshield - seconds later the windshield of the car is unbroken.

Hey,
just found this category; and even if I think, that certainly most of you know this little flaw already, I will share it:
In 'gunz n' boyz (Season7, #136)' when MacGyver is kept from the gun dealer in the back of his truck there are two different pairs of shoes.
When Mac tries to unlock the handcuffs with the metal top of the bottle, he has the bottle between his feet. From the distance perspective
you see Nike sneakers white and blue, when they zoom and you see just his feet, he has white sneakers (even another model, I think). They change between the different adjustments a few times, so that you can see it very well...
Nothing spectacular, but I am always smiling when I see this little thing
A nice weekend to you all, enjoy yourself! <3