Knight 4000

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knightofthephoenix
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Knight 4000

Post by knightofthephoenix » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:02 pm

How come some many people refer to it as K.I.F.T?

I guess it's logical to assume that since K.I.T.T. stood for the Knight Industries Two Thousand, but in this alternate Knight Rider world there was never any mention of Knight Industries or the Foundation for Law and Government. It was simply the "Knight 4000" and the "Knight Foundation"

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Victor Kros
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Re: Knight 4000

Post by Victor Kros » Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:58 pm

knightofthephoenix wrote:How come some many people refer to it as K.I.F.T?

I guess it's logical to assume that since K.I.T.T. stood for the Knight Industries Two Thousand, but in this alternate Knight Rider world there was never any mention of Knight Industries or the Foundation for Law and Government. It was simply the "Knight 4000" and the "Knight Foundation"

Image
At the time Knight Rider 2000 was made it was not considered an alternate reality, it was considered a continuation of the original series - this is why Michael was brought back in, further connections given to the "One man can make a difference" creed passed on to him by Wilton Knight on his death bed.

Earlier drafts of the script also confirmed this and did feature the name "Knight Industries" and "F.L.A.G." in them. I think somewhere along the line in the numerous script revisions, terminologies were lost not unlike in the backdoor pilot where they only said "The Foundation" and not F.L.A.G. itself or The Knight Foundation.

Because Knight Rider fans prefer to remember supercars as four letter acronyms (KITT, KARR, KITT (3000))

K.I.F.T. stands for Knight Industries Four Thousand, it does not stand for or relate to K.I.T.T. when the movie first begins but clearly there is a different AI inside the car designed and modeled after Maddox.

The Knight 4000 pretty much inherited the "Industries" moniker over time. Prior to TKR, all supercars had four letters. They didn't call the Knight 3000, K.T.T. in the new series either.

In the movie and script you are correct, it is only called The Knight 4000 regardless of having an A.I. inside of it.

It's also well known that an advanced car without an AI in Knight Rider circles was known simply as the Knight 2000, Knight 3000, Knight 4000.

It's assumed over the course of the series and into the movie that only the A.I.'s themselves had the "Industries" moniker attached to them. K.A.R.R. is an exception because he was a prototype. I'd say KARR just sounded better from a writing point of view, who would want to call him K.I.R.R.? Not very menacing.

Therefore in order to keep the generations in line and show this car was a "new" K.I.T.T. fans called it K.I.F.T. Additionally fans disliked the new car so they called it something else as to not confuse it with the original K.I.T.T. even if it had the same A.I. inside it.

Since there was no Knight Industries Three Thousand (at the time) and they just skipped a generation to 4000, people assumed it would be called K.I.F.T., it would make the most chronological sense.

I believe in closing it's just something the fans prefer to use. Why would you have a line of cars all with four letters and have one with three? (prior to TKR and K.R.O. which changed things further by just giving names)

If you say well, because The Knight 4000 isn't an acrynom then how would you explain the AI inside of it? Would you call it K.I.T.T. 2.0 since the AI is eventually replaced by K.I.T.T. or simply the new "KITT" as a character name and not the original designation? You wouldn't call the car with KITT inside it The Knight 4000, you'd call it KITT.

I believe K.I.F.T. is just an easier reference and since I was keeping things chronological in my book, I used the term most familar to fans regardless of how it was used in the movie itself.

If I had just called it The Knight 4000, I'd probably get the same question why I didn't say K.I.F.T. so I figure go with what fit better in the overall theme of the section.

I think whether or not "Industries" should be attached is up to the fans to decide.

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Re: Knight 4000

Post by Knight007 » Tue Apr 14, 2009 11:56 pm

Thank you for the detailed info. I didnt think about it before, I thought it just goes with the naming procedure created in KR. because we have KITT, then this should be KIFT.
specially after we get to see KI3T using the same nameing procedure
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Re: Knight 4000

Post by Lost Knight » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:16 pm

Furthermore, in Knight Rider 2000's universe, I believe the series circuitry was always meant to be even numbers. It makes just as much sense to me to make the Knight 4000 as K.I.T.T.'s successor as it does to make the Knight 3000. Knight 4000 makes sense because a Knight 1000 never existed. If they were to count chronologically, would it then make sense to suddenly use odd numbers after starting with 2000? We had Series 2000 circuitry with K.I.T.T. and the Knight 4000 arguably used Series 4000 circuitry or some other type of circuitry altogether since Russ Maddock sold off K.I.T.T.'s parts.

On the other hand, the Knight 3000 makes sense because you can still retain the "K.I.T.T." acronym as well as keeping slightly more accurate chronological order. But then of course you have the issue which the producers faced in the backdoor pilot of it not making sense to have a Knight 4000 come along before a Knight 3000. And you also have the confusion of having two separate characters both being named "K.I.T.T."

So it really comes down to a matter of retaining the "K.I.T.T." name with confusion yet avoiding using ugly sounding acronyms like "K.I.F.T." or "K.I.S.T.," or using only even numbered circuitry and not necessarily naming subsequent A.I.s. Each creative path presents their own logical aspects and their own problems.

And speaking of A.I.s, as per Victor and I's discussion in another thread, I also brought up the possibility that the Knight 4000's A.I. was never actually given a name. Devon said "it lacked K.I.T.T.'s humanity" which seems to suggest that Maddock purposely wanted it to be more of a lifeless talking computer as opposed to a human-like A.I. like Wilton Knight preferred. Maddock further explained that he had lost faith in human beings and it would therefore make sense to not even name the A.I. at all. As for the A.I. having a "human" voice, well, it was Maddock's own voice which was probably installed to satisfy his own ego since he took tremendous pride in the Knight 4000. Just my humble opinion.
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Re: Knight 4000

Post by knightofthephoenix » Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:56 pm

I wasn't aware that earlier scripts mentioned Knight Industries or FLAG. I think many fans assumed the Knight Foundation was the same thing, but it still seemed liked an inconsistency when this first aired.

Does anyone know where we could find these drafts?

Yes, I also think the AI wasn't given a name and would have simply been called the "Knight 4000" since it did seem to be a lifeless talking computer. The movie seemed to imply Maddock did this on purpose.

VK- I'm really enjoying your book. On a similar note, I laughed out loud at some of David's responses to your Knight Rider 2000 questions. I'm glad you covered this despite it not being (in my opinion) an acceptable continuation. Sadly, as time goes on, this has turned out to be the last time David, Edward and William Daniels were all involved in Knight Rider together.

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Re: Knight 4000

Post by Victor Kros » Wed Apr 15, 2009 10:06 pm

knightofthephoenix wrote:I wasn't aware that earlier scripts mentioned Knight Industries or FLAG. I think many fans assumed the Knight Foundation was the same thing, but it still seemed liked an inconsistency when this first aired.

Does anyone know where we could find these drafts?

Yes, I also think the AI wasn't given a name and would have simply been called the "Knight 4000" since it did seem to be a lifeless talking computer. The movie seemed to imply Maddock did this on purpose.

VK- I'm really enjoying your book. On a similar note, I laughed out loud at some of David's responses to your Knight Rider 2000 questions. I'm glad you covered this despite it not being (in my opinion) an acceptable continuation. Sadly, as time goes on, this has turned out to be the last time David, Edward and William Daniels were all involved in Knight Rider together.
- You can find links to the original drafts of Knight Rider 2000 at these great sites which do a very impressive job of covering the movie from production with cast/crew, the building of the Knight 4000, and so on.

http://www.knightriderarchive.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - under the Knight Rider 2000 section (Paul's site in the UK)

http://www.kr2k.com/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (I believe this is Scott' K's site)

I am glad you are enjoying my book, always good to hear that my hard work is appreciated. I covered Knight Rider 2000 because it involved the original cast in it and I wanted to cover that aspect of the Knight Rider mythology. Although Hasselhoff made a cameo in the backdoor pilot, I wanted to focus just on the original team and one cannot do so without including Knight Rider 2000.

I would have included photos and some detail into the building of the Knight 4000 but given the difficulty of working details out with Jay Ohrberg's people, I didn't want to take chances with legal issues over photo use.

Given that I already had so much material already, I kept Knight Rider 2000 pretty basic. I actually have content for TKR and Knight Rider 2010 but in the grand scope of things they just didn't fit in with the desire to spotlight the original mythology and not the entire Knight Rider universe.

Perhaps I can cover newer Knight Rider mythology in a volume 2 or something, never know what the future holds.

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Re: Knight 4000

Post by OKC KNIGHT » Tue Apr 21, 2009 3:37 am

Hey Nick (VICTOR KROS)

Sorry to go O.T on the thread here,So you had problems with dealing with Jay Ohbergs crew,I was planning to buy some conversion parts from him since he has them VERY cheap.But not many people have dealt with him regarding that,Do you recommend I deal with him or ?? I know he is based out of California but I cant find a phone # to reach him at ??

Thanks and I cant wait to order your book :wink: :good: Since,My KITT replica is keeping my wallet empty LOL. :lol: 8)

Dave
Specializing in 1982-1992 Firebird/Trans Am Parts since 2002 and the ONLY seller of High Quality KITT Taillight blackouts

My contact Dmcman108@yahoo.com

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Re: Knight 4000

Post by Victor Kros » Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:28 am

OKC KNIGHT wrote:Hey Nick (VICTOR KROS)

Sorry to go O.T on the thread here,So you had problems with dealing with Jay Ohbergs crew,I was planning to buy some conversion parts from him since he has them VERY cheap.But not many people have dealt with him regarding that,Do you recommend I deal with him or ?? I know he is based out of California but I cant find a phone # to reach him at ??

Thanks and I cant wait to order your book :wink: :good: Since,My KITT replica is keeping my wallet empty LOL. :lol: 8)

Dave
- Hello Dave, thanks for writing.

Let's see, I had problems with Jay's people only in regards to photo clearances. I cannot speak for his products or customer service. However Jay has recently been in some serious legal trouble with Warner Bros over his unauthorized Batmobile replicas. I would say if you're planning on buy things from him, I'm sure he can use the money but with his current situation, who knows when he'd get the work done for you at this moment in time.

My advice would be try and get in contact with him or his people through his official website and see what happens if you really think he's got the best deal for you. Otherwise, I'd shop around since you're likely to get your work done faster from other vendors.

You can reach Jay's people through one of the methods below (all listed on his site under "contact Jay")

http://jayohrberg.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

info@JayOhrberg.com
sales@JayOhrberg.com
(760)-722-0559

There are a lot of good sources for trusted vendors and customer experiences with them on the Knight Registries site here:

http://www.knightregistries.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

You may want to consider joining up and asking the members some questions if you see anything there that will help you with your replica building process.

Hope that helps.

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Re: Knight 4000

Post by rwmu » Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:27 pm

I always thought KIFT sounded silly and as has already been said it got turned into KITT Mark II anyway.

I always preferred K.R.O. as a replacemnt for KITT, one it sounded better as an acronym and two K.R.O. and its driver made Micheal Knight seem even more special
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