Yes, I think we're all over three years old and able to comprehend that that was what I meant.
The General Knight Rider thread.
- Thread starter Skipper
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Yes, I think we're all over three years old and able to comprehend that that was what I meant.
No women drivers I take it?
It was the 80s. I don't know if they even legally allowed to drive.
The '80s were the decade of Ripley and Sarah Connor, remember. Yes, there was some cultural regression from the '70s feminism that brought us the Bionic Woman and Wonder Woman on TV and Princess Leia in the movies, but there's always a mix of forward- and backward-looking influences on pop culture. (When I rewatched The Greatest American Hero a while back, I was impressed by how strong and equal a partner Connie Sellecca's Pam Davidson was to the male leads; but by the third season, the show apparently succumbed to network pressure to tone down her vocal feminism, "soften" her, and make her more of a conventional helpmeet and domestic. Ironically, the most misogynistic season 3 episodes were by the show's newest female writer-producer, Babs Greyhosky.)
The original definitely had a flair and look to it despite some cheesiness. Even if the occasional stunt would have to be tightly edited to hide as much hubcap-flinging as possible, of which "Trust Doesn't Rust" has a great example of that but, yeah, being season 1, given a low budget, and aired on that highly sought-after Friday death slot because the network had no confidence in it, it had enough charm between the characters and magic car to win people over. Plus a certain style and look was truly unique back then. Amazing how well the car still looks opposite every other mid-80s vehicle, never mind today's.
In rewatches, yeah there's some real cheese with arcade quality sound effects - literally as a molecular scanner uses the spider noise from the arcade hit "Centipede" that damper some scenes and risk taking the audience out of the episode, but it's the character chemistry and wit in the writing, combined by the leads embracing their roles with utter sincerity, that made it work. It got viewers to accept most things thrown at them on screen, even if the occasional stunt didn't quite work (but was good enough to not have to do a retake.)
Why they got rid of Bonnie for season 2 made no sense.
True, you'd never see Michael and KITT go after evil motorboat hijackers, but there were plenty of tropes within the format that could be used. Even in season 4, they still had some ideas - like where KITT is cornered between steel cargo boxes to kidnap it ("Kittnap", season 4 confirmed) and then the baddies open fire while believing Michael was trapped inside was a pretty nicely done scene.
But would the ideas behind this show work today? Most real-life technology is just like KITT's foreshadowing. KITT's fake stuff (e.g. remote brake locking or handcuff unlocking) likely couldn't be bought into today and watching the old episodes, you simply have to roll with that to make it through and generally the plotting was compelling enough, if not simple like how most 80s shows were (simple, style over substance, but some substance was still gouda.) The key would be to convince any advanced technology like that to have enough tangible backing and not just do it "because plot". It's not 1982 anymore and more of the technology isn't just going to wow. Will the new human characters and computer AI have the chemistry it takes? Did any of the previous reboots manage it?
Never mind the look of the car is sadly no less important. Only the original got it right, and partially by happenstance. To the point that they couldn't use the proper name in episodes because people wanted to buy THAT car, complete with fancy optional dash. Heck, in 1982, who wouldn't want it?!
But that said, the right time and format can induce success. Nobody expected BSG's 2004 reboot from being well-received either. Or the 1995 Brady Bunch movie having a mojo of its own. Then again, Knight Rider really is a product of its time. Too much would arguably have to change, so why not give it a new title with its own universe?
Speaking of hubcaps.
Had a 2013 Toyota Corolla come in for four tires this morning.
It had hubcaps that needed to be taken off before the technician could get to the lugnuts.
Had a 2013 Toyota Corolla come in for four tires this morning.
It had hubcaps that needed to be taken off before the technician could get to the lugnuts.
It's a balancing act for sure.
An AI that talks back? Can be done in real life now. Based on the size of the database, it could be done in 1982 - but far more limited and with a gruffer synthesized voice that was nothing like William Daniels'. TI 99/4a owners know that firsthand. Granted, given KITT"s alleged power source, it had to juice out a lot to handle two small CRTs and everything else... but fully implausible? Nope.
Turbo boost? By and large, sure. Build the struts well enough and something like that probably could pass in reality. In real life, clever placement of branches or garbage bags to hide the ramp was needed but not distracting for the most part. Good writing ensured the car couldn't fly to another city for no reason as well, they did keep things fairly grounded for the most part, which helped. This thankfully wasn't "Wonderbug" too...
The coating shell that was impervious to bullets? As with the car itself, I've no doubt customers were clamoring for that. In real life, if 1080P TV sets existed, they'd see every wax buff swirl and scratch on the main vehicle. And still could for some close-ups even on old poor dot-pitch CRTs.
Your post also reminds, season 4's snazzy new super pursuit mode allowed it to go as fast as... what the MPH readout shown in season 1's credits could do, while looking far uglier. Now slow down the footage to make it look like it's going faster, and pretend the audience can't see the traffic lights or other vehicles also looking cartoonish in speed, and voila. Never mind how Bonnie and crew could fabricate replacement microchips since no microchip-laden part of KITT was off-the-shelf anything. A copy of the operating system code could be retained, but how many chips were kept as backups? That's the fun one.
But seasons 1-3? For the most part, they weren't huge stretches of implausibility. Save for the remote hydraulic brake aimed at any car in front or to the side of KITT. Even the scanner with the Centipede spider sound could more or less be believed despite the giveaway. Once you recognize it, ditto for those episodes using Star Trek TOS sound effects, it's hard to not separate.
Why are all 3 vehicles "Land Vehicles"?
I've never been much of a car buff, but I thought the Trans Am looked cool, and KITT especially.
I never knew the reason. I just looked it up and it says the producers decided they wanted someone sexier than Patricia McPherson, but whoever thought Rebecca Holden was more attractive than McPherson had very different tastes than I did, or do.
A computer that talks back, yeah, but it's a misnomer to call it AI, since it has no more consciousness than a Magic 8 Ball. KITT wasn't just a voice, he was a person. That's still the stuff of fiction, and is likely to be for quite a while yet.
Technologically, no, but on the level of plot and character writing, it was generally pretty goofy. There's more to realism than just the hardware.
As for opening (mechanical) locks remotely using microwaves (!?!) and the like: it was so excessive that they didn't even try to do it in KR2008 (or TKR, as far as I know). And I remember that even as a kid I found it much more implausible than the various turbo boosts or KITT's indestructible body.
That was always "Hokey" & never made sense.
If it was a "Electronic Lock", I could understand using Microwaves to fry the PCB / Circuit Board to open the "Electronic Lock".
But a "Mechanical Lock", just grab a lock picking kit and have Michael go to town on it.
Yeah, it was borderline magic
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you know, it almost seems like when they want to parody 80's action TV shows, like Kung Fury
Wow, it's a turducken of Asian stereotypes. A silent guy with a Vietnamese-sounding name practicing Japanese martial arts and using Chinese and Japanese weapons. After all, Asia was just one big undifferentiated blur to Americans back then. (Although it goes both ways. In the Japanese tokusatsu show Battle Fever J, in which the team members had their own trademark national dances they performed in the post-transformation roll call, Battle France's national dance was... the flamenco.)
And a car called "ninja" which throws shurikens!
when I see that Force III poster and the Hodge-podge of at least three rip-off's ("Knight Rider" being the super obvious), I think of that scene from an episode of "Futurama":
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