Lean into AI, keep the Firebird. Mixing old and new. Maybe make Michael and KITT a bit more of a “fun adversarial” duo.
The General Knight Rider thread.
- Thread starter Skipper
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Lean into AI, keep the Firebird. Mixing old and new. Maybe make Michael and KITT a bit more of a “fun adversarial” duo.
You have something here...Make KITT Michael's boss.
Kitt was an AI used by the police to fight crime! After a hacker attack that almost wiped it out, it's installed in a car! They give it a human, Michael Knight, to go where it can't and act as a kind of remote drone!
I guess it could be handwaved by assuming that nobody was able to duplicate Wilton Knight's (or whoever's) work in creating a sapient AI, but it still made for a less interesting version of KITT.
By George, I think you've got it!
I know the original KR obviously wasn't that kind of show, but I've always wondered if in its universe, AIs were rare but not unique. I mean, it was truly uncommon to have them installed in a car.
People in the show are surprised that KITT is a talking machine, but no one is ever like, "So, someone created a real SENTIENT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE??? This is revolutionary!!!"
According to Wikipedia
In my headcanon, in the KR Universe, AIs are only used by governments and megacorporations, so few people have direct contact with them, a bit like computers in the 1950s. "Ordinary" people know they exist but have never interacted with them. So they're surprised there's one in a car, but they're not totally freaked out.
People in the show are surprised that KITT is a talking machine, but no one is ever like, "So, someone created a real SENTIENT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE??? This is revolutionary!!!"
According to Wikipedia
In my headcanon, in the KR Universe, AIs are only used by governments and megacorporations, so few people have direct contact with them, a bit like computers in the 1950s. "Ordinary" people know they exist but have never interacted with them. So they're surprised there's one in a car, but they're not totally freaked out.
Yeah, I think you're overthinking what was just a goofy action show aimed at young viewers. You might as well wonder why people in the Scooby-Doo universe are so accepting of a sapient talking dog.
I mean, it's no different from how characters adjusted to discovering that Steve Austin had bionic limbs, or that Darien Lambert from Time Trax was from the future. There isn't really room in a weekly action show for the guest characters to wrestle for long with the existential questions.
I must insist on using the original theme music. Keep playing that synth. KR was a silly guilty pleasure for the time. I met Rebecca Holden when I was working at a dinner theater she was singing in that week sometime after she left KR. She seemed nice.
Had hope for the 2008 reboot, but they did what most were doing ) and still do) is make it a "Team" series. like 5-6 people. when the original KR was mainly Michael and Kitt, that and to much CGI.
We'l see what happens.
We'l see what happens.
They tried to change the formula towards the end but, "too little, too late.".
And it's impossible to do those kinds of stunts on a television budget anymore. Even the Fast and Furious movie franchise uses CGI. I remember a behind-the-scenes look at KR2008 when they had to make the vehicle take a tiny leap. They were terrified. And they had to repair all the damage right afterward.
You can see the "jump" a 00:04 second.
This is probably the biggest not-cgi stunt they did in KR2008.
Well when you use a GT 500 that cost alot instead of a stock Mustang, then yes, your scared of scratching the paint.
Why is that? I mean, I think a lot of TV shows today have bigger budgets, even correcting for inflation, than a cheesy action show would've had to work with back in the '70s or '80s. Is it that cars are so much more expensive now? Is it a liability/insurance thing?
I think I read once that The Dukes of Hazzard trashed an average of three Dodge Chargers per episode, not counting all the other cars they wrecked.
When everybody brought up the various "Knight Rider" spin-off series, I feel the need to remind people they all missed one:
"Code of Vengeance"
A spin-off series that went to order and production, spun off the two-part episode "Mouth of the Snake" with that guy that had special abilities.
It fell apart quickly.
After four completed episode, it was cancelled while still in production. The episodes were edited into two TV movies.
I've only seen the first one, two cuts -- the original slightly longer cut and the aired cut.
So basically, what they did is they took all the mystery and special abilities of the character and shit-canned all of it basically made him a loner drifter Rambo-like character who gets into situations and helps people.
And on top of that, this was SUPPOSED to be a spin-off of "Knight rider", but in the the first TV movie, what's playing on TV? "Knight Rider".
What was the point of this garbage? Why did they destroy all the good things that could have made it interesting? Who knows. Way more reading than I want to get in (assuming those answers are to be found).
Only thing carried over worth a damn: composer Don Peake. But he was essentially wasted here. I don't know if he scored the second movie, as online sources suggest a project by the name of "Code of Vengeance" with the composer of Christopher Franke.
"Code of Vengeance"
A spin-off series that went to order and production, spun off the two-part episode "Mouth of the Snake" with that guy that had special abilities.
It fell apart quickly.
After four completed episode, it was cancelled while still in production. The episodes were edited into two TV movies.
I've only seen the first one, two cuts -- the original slightly longer cut and the aired cut.
So basically, what they did is they took all the mystery and special abilities of the character and shit-canned all of it basically made him a loner drifter Rambo-like character who gets into situations and helps people.
And on top of that, this was SUPPOSED to be a spin-off of "Knight rider", but in the the first TV movie, what's playing on TV? "Knight Rider".
What was the point of this garbage? Why did they destroy all the good things that could have made it interesting? Who knows. Way more reading than I want to get in (assuming those answers are to be found).
Only thing carried over worth a damn: composer Don Peake. But he was essentially wasted here. I don't know if he scored the second movie, as online sources suggest a project by the name of "Code of Vengeance" with the composer of Christopher Franke.
I have to admit, I've never seen Team Knight Rider. This was during the time when networks liked doing a lot of syndication, which meant that depending on local affiliates, they could be showing different things. There are many series that I've heard about but never seen for these reasons, just as a result of browsing the TV Guide. And sometimes it's for the better. But I never got to see it for that reason as I don't remember it ever being aired locally.
I never heard someone saying: "You know who deserved a second season?!? Team Knight Rider!"
See, I saw Viper, but not TKR. So, how about a trade of information? 
I thought it was a pretty good show. Like Knight Rider though, they changed the concept a bit in their later seasons and changed the design of the car, along with its lead, I believe.
Around this same time, we also got the Bandit series of movies which were spiritual successors to Smokey and the Bandit.
I thought it was a pretty good show. Like Knight Rider though, they changed the concept a bit in their later seasons and changed the design of the car, along with its lead, I believe.
Around this same time, we also got the Bandit series of movies which were spiritual successors to Smokey and the Bandit.
Networks have nothing to do with syndication -- they're two mutually exclusive avenues of distribution. Studios make shows, and either they sell them to a network to air nationwide, or they bypass networks and syndicate them to individual local stations.
As for Team Knight Rider, you didn't miss much. I'd call it the weakest of the three series, and I say that as someone who found the original quite cheesy. And its connections to the original were quite tenuous, as I recall.
I kind of liked the original network season, which was from Danny Bilson & Paul DeMeo (The Rocketeer, The Flash (1990), The Sentinel). As someone who's never been fond of protagonists who kill, I liked it that the inventor of the Viper (played by Dorian Harewood) was determined to keep its weapons nonlethal. I wasn't as fond of the syndicated revival, which threw that out and equipped the car with machine guns.
It's weird -- between War of the Worlds in 1988 and M.A.N.T.I.S. and Viper in 1994, there was a mini-trend of genre shows featuring African-American engineers/inventors in wheelchairs (respectively, Philip Akin, Carl Lumbly, and Harewood). It's an odd coincidence, and even odder if it somehow wasn't a coincidence.
Not just spiritual successors but a direct reboot. Those were part of the Universal Action Pack movie wheel, which also featured Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, TekWar, the martial arts series Vanishing Son, Knight Rider 2010, and movies based on the film Midnight Run. They gave up on the movie-wheel format after a couple of years and spun off the first three of those as weekly series, though they spun TekWar out of the Action Pack package and sold it to the USA network instead.
Uh never watched TKRSee, I saw Viper, but not TKR. So, how about a trade of information?
I thought it was a pretty good show. Like Knight Rider though, they changed the concept a bit in their later seasons and changed the design of the car, along with its lead, I believe.
Around this same time, we also got the Bandit series of movies which were spiritual successors to Smokey and the Bandit.
What about just some personal impression on KR2008?Similar threads
