knight rider online

Well..i expected more imagination from mr cullen on the voiceover of KARR..
The voiceover is exatcly the same as in transformers..
If it wasnt the figure of karr syou could hear the optimus prime speaking..like was a crossover of a sort betweent transformers and knight rider(by my humble opinion it is..by the worst).
I still hope for that i heard so far wont be the truth in the next episode..
If it is....i dont know..a huge letdown!

lets be fair... you're judging on a 3 second voice clip... and that IS KARR's voice... its great to have that piece from the original series

If you go back and watch Trust Doesn't Rust, listen to KARR's voice. It does sound near identical to his Optimus Prime.

The difference comes in the characterization. KARR sounds robotic (not just in tone, but in vocabulary), immature, and selfish. Optimus Prime is the freaking Messiah.

Unless one of KARR's lines is "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, KITT!" there's nothing to cringe about.

cant judge the whole episode voiceover on three little words.

We should be all "happy" that we at least have Mr. Cullen to do the voice period.

I'm not exactly sure what you were expecting? Cullen pretty much has 3 voices: his regular speaking voice, his "acting" voice (heard as Prime, in trailers/previews, KARR etc.) and then his lower tone, easy goin "Eeyore" voice. The man's voice is so powerful that's what he sells. I personally clapped and had a big stupid grin on my face for five minutes after hearing those words.

KingPyros wrote:Well..i expected more imagination from mr cullen on the voiceover of KARR..
The voiceover is exatcly the same as in transformers..
If it wasnt the figure of karr syou could hear the optimus prime speaking..like was a crossover of a sort betweent transformers and knight rider(by my humble opinion it is..by the worst).
I still hope for that i heard so far wont be the truth in the next episode..
If it is....i dont know..a huge letdown!

What I feel I must point out is that:
1. You're judging from a three-second sound bite. Granted, you're probably right that they sound the same(I'll get to that in a minute), but at least wait until you see the episode before you judge it.

2. Peter Cullen was KARR first, Optimus second. Trust Doesn't Rust, KARR's debut episode in which he was voiced by Peter Cullen*, aired November 19th, 1982. Transformers didn't hit the airwaves until September 17, 1984, almost a full two years later.
(*In KARR's Season 3 return "KITT vs KARR"(aired 11/4/84), Cullen did not reprise the role, and was replaced by Paul Frees)

3. Peter Cullen's KARR and his Optimus Prime always had the same voice anyway. That's because it's the same person. It's the same reason why, to use an example from anime, Zechs in Gundam Wing and Jack Sisco in Zoids have the same voices - Both guys are voiced by Brian Drummond.

That's his voice. He sounds like Optimus Prime in Trust Doesn't Rust. I'm not sure what else you were expecting.

Even in those three seconds Peter Cullen sounded great! He might be Optimus Prime to some, but to me, he's also KARR! I was thrilled to hear him in the preview! You KNEW it was KARR.

Stealthwalker wrote:We should be all "happy" that we at least have Mr. Cullen to do the voice period.

Hear, hear!

Paul Frees' voice for KARR sounds a little more sinister in my opinion. I'll wait and see about Peter Cullen's KARR reprisal though.

Yeah Paul Frees voice work for KARR was awesome and gave a fitting attitude. Too bad he couldn't come back due to no longer being among the living. I would have totally taken him over Cullen if it were possible.

Same here. I was a bigger fan of Frees than of Cullen, but that was mostly due to the given characterizations. TDR had a KARR was was naive and dangerous on accident, moreover. In KVK, he's downright evil, and actually seeking revenge, which I prefurred.

But if I had the choice of Cullen or a perfect Frees sound-alike, I'd still pick Cullen for that authentic touch. Hopefully, KARR with be given the "KVK" characterization carried over into the new series, which, judging by his "KITT must die!" line, I'd say is a safe bet.

That line is yet another "giveaway" that it's the same AI. It represents a deep-seeded hatred for KITT, from a history together. If it were a new AI, this would not be probable. Granted, KARR never faced the K3000, but just based on the acronyms being the same, KARR would probably (at first) assume that this KITT is the K2000 in a new body.

Peter Cullen did KARR before he did Prime. Go back and watch "Trust doesnt Rust" and KARR doesnt sound much different than Prime.

Another fan of Paul Frees' voicework for KARR in the original series.

Personally I think Cullens' voicework in Trust Doesn't Rust sounded a bit too cheesy, it fit in perfectly in saturday morning cartoon, but it was a bit too cheesy for something filmed with real actors, even to be in the 80's (yes I know most of the TV-shows in the 80's were cheesy as hell but I think this case was a bit too much over the top). The way Paul Frees did it gave KARR a kind of evil charisma (the same kind Heath Ledger had as the Joker in The Dark Knight) by overdoing the "evilness", but still didn't sound too cheesy.

Having him do exactly the same voice as he did in the 80's almost 30 years later just (according to the verry brief snippet) just doesn't sound right. I mean these days TV is way less acceptant to cheesyness (unless it's not trying to make fun of something because of being too cheesy) and with the "climate change" it's just simply going to sound awfull and a lot of people new to KARR and make a lot of these people make fun of the show because of this (I predict sketch about it on Late Night with Conan o Brien in less than a week after).

Having Paul Frees do the same kind of voicework he did in KITT vs KARR would improve the KARR character significantly, but it still sound horrible to people who haven't seen the KITT vs KARR-episode or like this kind of 80's cheesyness.

What I would have done (if I was in charge) would have been to just simply give the old fans the finger in this case, as the majority of the vievers are not familiar to the specifics of the original show and as no matter what they do fans will allways be whinging like broken motors no matter what they do, that's what fans do. By "giving the finger" I mean giving him a more up-to-date and "time-tolerant" (doesn't loose it's appeal over the years) voice like KI2T had and KI3T currently has. Shure this might be a bit of a letdown for the fas of the old KARR, but it's going to help introduce people to the new KARR as it wouldn't have the "80's taste" gap and would "lower the steppingstone" with a similar voice to the allready introduced KI3T.

I can understand that having Peter Cullen return is going to be a big thing for a lot of fans of the original series, but I'd estimate that max 75% of the vievers won't even know that cullen was the voice of the original KARR, a bit more are going to know he's the original voice for Optimus Prime, but still the percentage of vievers familiar with Cullens' voice are ging to be a long way from 50% and becoming a majority (and hence a reason to specifically cateer to them).

Shure, it's great as a fan to be specifically cateered to, but sometimes it just simply goes to redicculous heights. As an example we have the KI3T scanner noice, I personally think it gave KI3T a kind of personality of his own as a new knight car, but ofcouse they changed it the original one and cuppled with KI3T having a similar voice to KI2T(realtivly monotone) as well as personality (trying to understand people and their behaviour but failing at it) it doesn't feel like a new car turning a new leaf, but just an upgraded model. I wouldn't be surprised if once the Hoff makes an appearence it turns out the AI in KI3T turns out to be a heavily uppgraded version of the KI2T AI able to swich over to Willian Daniels' voice and using this voice whenever the Hoff is around.

So to quote Ben "Yazee" Croshaw: "You should never try to do everything to please the fans, as no matter what you do, the're going to winge like a buch of broken motors". I mean, turn a new leaf allready will you NBC, instead of trying to live off the nostalgia of old fans, as it just simply isn't profitable or enjoyable to non fans.

So to summarize my way too long rant (compared to the actual content) in one sentence: Doing to much cateering to the fans of the old show, like having peter culled do the Optimus Prime voice for your new KARR is a bad idea, a verry bad idea indeed.

(Too lazy right now to fix typos, so don't bother to start complaing about them)

I don't mind either or. I liked both: Frees because he sounded more evil, while Cullen sounded more naive, not wanting to go back to the slammer (I hope they put that in there ) But since we don't not have Paul Frees with us, we still have Peter Cullen, who is just as good. I'll only care if they switch the ways, Cullen doing the Evil vengeful KARR. It is not the voice of the character that matters, but his personalty. Personally, I wouldn't have minded a distorted Val Kilmer, as long as they did KARR right.

Just guessing from the brief clip of KARR's voice...but I suspect that Peter Cullen is doing the evil, vengeful KARR this time.

in which clip can i hear karrs voice?

I'm so excited that KARR is back and that the voice over is peter cullen!

And you can't judge the voice over a teaser

To me the reason why Peter Cullen sounds more like optiums prime voice for the new KARR. I think he tried to do his orginial KARR voice but he could not do the orginal KARR voice again so they went ahead with his transformers voice over with KARR.

For example:

I have a Family Guy DVD with Commentary, and on one episode Seth Macfarlane mentions in one episode his voice of Stewie, his voice gets so high and then he mention after it got that high then he could not do the voice of Brian anymore.


I think that is what happen with Peter Cullen and plus he is like 65 years old, and everyone know when you get older you voice dose change.

IMO Paul Frees was the best.

"They must have picked up my sonar!... Damn."

That's a great Paul Frees quote. Very menacing. Glad Peter Cullen is back.

Guys, Paul Frees is deceased.

I personally think getting Peter Cullen back is the coolest thing to happen in this series so far.

Yes... We know Paul Frees is dead...

I think this is just another instance of a sound department that either can't do something or doesn't want to do it with tweaking Cullen's voice like they did in TDR. Same deal with Kilmer and certain things lacking any real identifiable sound.

If its any consolation to anyone regarding Peter Cullen.

I asked someone who would know if his portrayal of this incarnation of Karr was really evil

Apparantly we wont be dissapointed.