Oh, that brings up another one -- how are those two flaps supposed to not rip right off at the speeds K.I.T.T. was going in SPM? Molecularly-bonded flaps, too? Come on.
The General Knight Rider thread.
- Thread starter Skipper
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TV fans? Maybe not. Car fans? Hell, yeah, they were. Of course people who like fast-moving vehicles care about aerodynamics. I went looking for Popular Mechanics articles from the period, picking 1985 at random, and got this on my first try:
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics inspires, instructs and influences readers to help them master the modern world. Whether it’s practical DIY home-improvement tips, gadgets and digital technology, information on the newest cars or the latest breakthroughs in science -- PM is the ultimate guide to our high-tech...
books.google.com
Also, the word "aerodynamics" is not capitalized. It's not a brand name.
KITT lost the Molecular Bonded Shell by the time he gained SPM.
Same tech that keeps the nacelles attached to the pylons of the TOS Enterprise.
Same tech that keeps the nacelles attached to the pylons of the TOS Enterprise.
Well, the nerd in me knows that's not even the same thing. ;-)
I'm talking about average fans understandings, not Car Fans.
We all know the average Auto Enthusiast would know this.
The average fan now-a-days are more informed on the basics than before.
I know it's not, that's me being idiosyncratic and just doing it because I can.
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics inspires, instructs and influences readers to help them master the modern world. Whether it’s practical DIY home-improvement tips, gadgets and digital technology, information on the newest cars or the latest breakthroughs in science -- PM is the ultimate guide to our high-tech...books.google.com
Also, the word "aerodynamics" is not capitalized. It's not a brand name.
I know the capitalization rules, I just stopped caring to follow them when I think certain words need extra emphasis.
Plot Armor!Same tech that keeps the nacelles attached to the pylons of the TOS Enterprise.
By the Power of Plot Armor.
Good Structural Engineering be damned.
Dude... It's Knight Rider. It's a show about a cool car. Obviously there's a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram.
You're also forgetting that Super Pursuit Mode had to be built by auto customizer George Barris. If you're claiming that one of the most famous auto customizers in the world didn't understand auto aerodynamics, you really need to rethink your assumptions from the ground up. Barris surely knew it had terrible aerodynamics, but that didn't matter, because of course its superspeed was faked.
That's the point, the needs of the show, trumped Reality & IRL Physics / AeroDynamics.
They did what was good for the "Rule of Cool" Trope instead of what was Realistic/Believable.
That's fine for entertaining kids & those who don't know any better, but don't expect that to go without critique once the fans grow up and see reality for what it is and how their 'Cool In-Show Ideas' never could've been realistic in any sense.
Just like AIRWOLF never could've gone Super-Sonic, that was just a conceit of the show for the "Rule of Cool".
Many modern fans are trying to find a better balance between Realism & Story Telling with their shows while still being fanciful enough with what is portrayed on screen.
Blending Realism in as close as possible. The more Realistic, the better.
This is the main reason why every KR reboot is doomed.
Honestly, if they try to adapt a few features from other Super Car shows and not to try going too insane on CGI heavy features like they did with KR 2008, it would've been better.
VIPER had a few good ideas that can be borrowed like the deployable weapons pod on the port & starboard sides below the door, have a deployable drone for scouting (that's the easy part given modern day drone tech).
The Armor can use a little revising.
The Pop-Up lights can be replaced with Pop-Up Weapons Station.
There are so many cool "Car Gadgets" from either James Bond or any number of Super Car TV/Shows to borrow that you can outfit the car reasonably from the get go.
Yes, that's my point. Saying it was done because aerodynamic science was less understood in the 1980s is ridiculously ignorant, condescending, and insulting. We understood the science perfectly well back then, thank you very much, but Knight Rider was not a show that cared in the slightest about science.
Stop insulting your elders. Plenty of us in my generation valued realism in science fiction, which is why we were so drawn to Star Trek as the one SF show of the era that made any effort at it at all. But nobody who wanted realism would look to Knight Rider for it. Stop talking as if it's the template by which the entire era should be judged. It was at the low end of the intelligence spectrum by design.
Yes, the Technical People & Car Enthusiasts would understand, no problem with that statement.
The average fan base who was targeted to watch Knight Rider wouldn't be part of that group.
Especially the younger audience who followed it, which I was a part of.
The science behind how all the things worked wasn't even remotely considered at that time.
The only thing that mattered was the cool on screen action & story.
But you're a rare breed, the Venn Diagram between Trekkies & Knight Rider Fans during the time that it aired couldn't have been that big.
Of course not, it was a action show with fantastical elements for a very young & casual audience.
It worked, it has its cult following because of it.
I guess you can say that about all the "Super Vehicle" shows of the era, they were fun Action Romps for a very casual audience.
That's my point. You keep generalizing about the entire audience as if Knight Rider were the standard for all shows.
It kind of was, it set a trend with "Super Vehicle" shows of that era that many copied.
Look at Air Wolf, Blue Thunder Movie/TV, Street Hawk, VIPER, Thunder in Paradise.
All the major "Super Vehicle" Shows/Movie had a similar formula and had various levels of success because of it.
e.g. Street Hawk having a Motorcycle capable of Top Speeds of 300 mph was fantastical for that era (1985).
The Fastest Production Motorcycle of that time had Top Speeds of (151-158 mph)
The Current Fastest Production Motorcycle has a Top Speed of (205 mph).
A Custom Land Speed Record for Motorcycles can get up to the 300+ mph range, but that's far more recent and usually one off custom vehicles.
The Casual Audience would find that to be very cool and Street Hawk to be awesome.
To any Motor Cycle enthusiast, they would be scoffing at the 300 mph top speed since it couldn't have been done at the time.
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I think you're vastly overestimating the "average fan", I have feeling most "average fans" especially modern ones, probably have probably have no idea what aerodynamics or anything like that are. And the most "realism" they care about is if the shiny car goes fast.
I think people might be missing the appeal of the original Knight Rider. It wasn't about the car's abilities or even the premise. The show was basically a light P.I. action/adventure show. The appeal wasn't what KITT could do as a super car. It was about what William Daniels did with KITT as a voice actor and the writing. It was a buddies cop show. Daniels voice acting elevated the writing to create a memorable character in KITT. (I just found out that Williams is still alive at 98.)
Without understanding that was the essential appeal of Knight Rider, no show creator could recapture the spirit of the original show.
Without understanding that was the essential appeal of Knight Rider, no show creator could recapture the spirit of the original show.
Well, I was
I was watching Billionaires' Bunker on Netflix, and there's a scene that struck me. A character starts talking emotionally to the show's equivalent of Siri and realizes how pathetic it is.
It's an attitude I've noticed lately when it comes to AI (yes, I know, they are LLMs, so let's not get too hung up on semantics for a moment). Maybe it was cool to have a conversation with an AI in the '80s, but now I've noticed that people tend to judge those who start serious conversations with CHAtGPT or similar. It's considered something only people with human relationship issues or who don't want to confide in a human do.
Now imagine a 12- or 13-year-old watching this series. How do you explain the difference between an LLM and a real, sentient AI?
They would only see a guy with no real friends who is forced to confide in and ask for help from the equivalent of Anima or Replika when he works.
I suppose there was something for everyone in this series.
I was watching Billionaires' Bunker on Netflix, and there's a scene that struck me. A character starts talking emotionally to the show's equivalent of Siri and realizes how pathetic it is.
It's an attitude I've noticed lately when it comes to AI (yes, I know, they are LLMs, so let's not get too hung up on semantics for a moment). Maybe it was cool to have a conversation with an AI in the '80s, but now I've noticed that people tend to judge those who start serious conversations with CHAtGPT or similar. It's considered something only people with human relationship issues or who don't want to confide in a human do.
Now imagine a 12- or 13-year-old watching this series. How do you explain the difference between an LLM and a real, sentient AI?
They would only see a guy with no real friends who is forced to confide in and ask for help from the equivalent of Anima or Replika when he works.
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True, KITT's personality was the main appeal. Still, I did think the car was rather cool, and I'm not even a car buff.
I think the clear difference is in how it behaves. An LLM will get basic facts wrong and produce superficially grammatical and human-sounding sentences that are nonetheless basically gibberish and don't convey useful or consistent information. A true AGI will give more coherent and accurate replies, and will express its own thoughts, will, and initiative rather than just responding to a human's prompts.
Remember Koko, the gorilla who famously knew sign language? There were skeptics who said she wasn't really conscious but was just responding to her trainer's prompts, but she was found to sign to herself when she was alone (but on camera), to initiate conversations and ask questions unprompted, and even to coin her own original signs. It was clear that she had an inner life and understood what she was saying.
Conversely, there's the Joi sex-hologram character that Ana de Armas played in Blade Runner 2049. She superficially talks and acts like a sentient person, but if you pay attention, she never expresses a thought or desire that's about herself, or about anyone other than her owner. Everything she says and does is geared solely toward serving his happiness and safety and responding to his needs, never any initiative or opinons of her own. So it's clear that she's not a conscious individual, just a product programmed to create a convincing illusion of personhood.
That's one thing that stands out about KITT -- he was never just there to respond to Michael's needs, but had his own independent will and perspective that he wasn't shy about expressing.
Anyway, I don't think you have to worry about viewers' ability to accept sentient AIs in fiction despite their nonexistence in real life. I mean, viewers of fiction are able to accept sentient, talking rabbits, bears, dogs, ducks, toys, insects, cars, personified emotions, etc. without difficulty. They understand that fiction is fictional, that stories are about characters with wills of their own. So if a story presents a piece of software as having true intelligence, that's no harder to buy than Kermit the Frog or Buzz Lightyear having intelligence.
You got me!
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