Newsarama article and GST interview

[Garthe Knight]

There is an article about the new KR series on Newsarama. Very interesting and very promising.
http://www.newsarama.com/tv/080828-KnightRider.html

[PHOENIXZERO]

Interesting indeed... Thanks for finding that. I'd write more but I'm in a hurry... I probably will later.

[Lost Knight]

It's pretty much everything we already know, but still a good read, nonetheless. I understand the need to make it a more adrenaline-packed and fast-paced series because of today's Attention Defecit Disorder audience who can't sit still and watch something anymore unless there is non-stop action. But it also seems like there is going to be good plot developments between all the characters and especially K.I.T.T., which is also just as important.

While shows like 24 are almost entirely adrenaline-pumping action for most of its episodes, some people can't get into it because it follows a soap-opera-ish plot, where if you miss an episode or don't watch from the very beginning of the season, it's difficult to follow. While it appears as if there will be some story arcs here, it also appears as if there will be enough stand-alone episodes to bypass this issue, but yet hopefully maintain the same sense of action.

The right ingredients seem to be there, but things can also get out of control and be taken too far, too, which is another concern of mine. For me, it's about keeping the action, good character development/plots and finding the right balance of showing the audience things they've never seen before, but not stretching the realm of reality too far.

[Sky_Blue_Civic]

It's a pretty good article. Thanks for putting up the link!

[goldbug]

Two parts of the article I was very glad to read:

"To further contemporize Knight Rider and raise the stakes, Michael will be facing such headline worthy dangers as terrorism, anarchists, and stolen hi-tech material."

That should get us away from comments about Mike having to save the "hot single mom of the week". Plus they make for more interesting plot lines anyhow.

I'm also glad to see GST recognizes that KITT's personality needs to grow over time. It jives with fan speculation that KITT in the pilot was still very new and did not have enough interaction with people to have the personality level of the original KITT.

A hopeful article indeed!

[pheonix_knight]

Something referenced in the article which was also at comic con is that GST said he'd watched all of season 1 of the original series. Would it perhaps have been better if he'd watched selected episodes from EACH of the 4 seasons to see how the characters progressed and where the foundation was up to before the show was cancelled...?

Something else from Comic Con that GST said was that KITT WAS installed into Michael Long's car, so we kinda know where the mythology is going on that question which has often been debated in the past. That seems strange though, given that in KOTP (which GST would have seen as part of season 1) the lines from Devon Miles when ML is first meeting KITT are not that ambiguous, such as "any resemblence between that car and your own is purely superficial" or "it may LOOK like your car but..." (the rest of that line escapes my memory!)

[Faithful Car KRO]

Something else from Comic Con that GST said was that KITT WAS installed into Michael Long's car, so we kinda know where the mythology is going on that question which has often been debated in the past. That seems strange though, given that in KOTP (which GST would have seen as part of season 1) the lines from Devon Miles when ML is first meeting KITT are not that ambiguous, such as "any resemblence between that car and your own is purely superficial" or "it may LOOK like your car but..." (the rest of that line escapes my memory!)

i always took that as many that even though it was his car and even looked like it, it was no longer "his" because of the fact that kitt was in it and thus now belonged truely to the foundation...

[Scott Kirkessner]

I understand the need to make it a more adrenaline-packed and fast-paced series because of today's Attention Defecit Disorder audience who can't sit still and watch something anymore unless there is non-stop action.

Hey this reminds me of a joke (it's just a joke, don't be offended)... Nowadays we have ADD, ADHD, etc... in my day, you were just called stupid...

[JJSoCrazy]

Something referenced in the article which was also at comic con is that GST said he'd watched all of season 1 of the original series. Would it perhaps have been better if he'd watched selected episodes from EACH of the 4 seasons to see how the characters progressed and where the foundation was up to before the show was cancelled...?

Something else from Comic Con that GST said was that KITT WAS installed into Michael Long's car, so we kinda know where the mythology is going on that question which has often been debated in the past. That seems strange though, given that in KOTP (which GST would have seen as part of season 1) the lines from Devon Miles when ML is first meeting KITT are not that ambiguous, such as "any resemblence between that car and your own is purely superficial" or "it may LOOK like your car but..." (the rest of that line escapes my memory!)

"It may look like your car but in actuallity this car is the safest and fastest car in the world."

[pheonix_knight]

"It may look like your car but in actuallity this car is the safest and fastest car in the world."

yea, Devon never specifically says one way or the other does he?

"we like to think of it as OUR car" (where as he could have said, no yours is in the Nevada Desert)

[Knight316]

I wonder if maybe they knew what kind of car he drove and since he was the one specifically chosen before he ever met Devon, they made KITT to look like his car so as to have something familiar to him given the amount of change it would have been. I remember when they got to him you heard Devon say they were too late which to me, says that he was chosen for the job long before Tania shot him in the face.

[Sue]

I originally thought it was Michael’s too, but now I’m not so sure. I think the dialogue can be interpreted either way. Wilton apparently wanted him to think it was his car anyway, because when MK says I’m taking my car with me Wilton says prepare the car for him. … Though he doesn’t say prepare his car… oh dear … it’s all a debate of semantics really.

I wonder if maybe they knew what kind of car he drove and since he was the one specifically chosen before he ever met Devon, they made KITT to look like his car so as to have something familiar to him given the amount of change it would have been. I remember when they got to him you heard Devon say they were too late which to me, says that he was chosen for the job long before Tania shot him in the face.

No Knight316, I feel like that’s a stretch because KARR came first and I imagine they made KARR long before they picked out MK. Though it is easy to imagine more to the story than is there. I had kind of thought it a romantic notion that ML and KITT were partners before they both went through their transformations together. I had figured that since MLs car turned out to be the same as KARR they decided to start again instead of fix KARR.

[Knight Rider Archive]

I originally thought it was Michael’s too, but now I’m not so sure. I think the dialogue can be interpreted either way. Wilton apparently wanted him to think it was his car anyway, because when MK says I’m taking my car with me Wilton says prepare the car for him. … Though he doesn’t say prepare his car… oh dear … it’s all a debate of semantics really.

It was Glen Larson's original intention that K.I.T.T. was installed in Michael Long's car. That much is clear from the early drafts and the novelisation (based on those early Larson scripts). Of course, this doesn't jive with the retroactive-continuity established later on, in terms of K.A.R.R. being K.I.T.T.'s prototype -- and also a Trans Am -- and the fact that K.I.T.T. describes himself as "the property of the Foundation for Law and Government" (Knight in Disgrace).

The Knight 2000 Trans Am being Long's car would work in a movie version, but I think it was much better for the series by interpreting it all as a coincidence. It also worked nicely setting Michael and Devon up against each other: "Come on, this is my car," etc.

IMHO the car should be a one-of-a-kind machine, not just an improvement on someone's production-line model (even if it looks like a car you can go out and buy )

[PHOENIXZERO]

The Knight 2000 was registered in the name of Michael Knight wasn't it and shouldn't that also include KITT? That always confused me when I was little when it came to those episodes where Michael "left" and left KITT because KITT belonged to FLAG (though, okay one was a set up to catch the bad guy), even more so in the episode(s) where IIRC Michael even stated KITT belonged to him, or I think he did in Lost Knight. There might have been another episode or two also...

[Knight Rider Archive]

The Knight 2000 was registered in the name of Michael Knight wasn't it and shouldn't that also include KITT? That always confused me when I was little when it came to those episodes where Michael "left" and left KITT because KITT belonged to FLAG (though, okay one was a set up to catch the bad guy), even more so in the episode(s) where IIRC Michael even stated KITT belonged to him, or I think he did in Lost Knight. There might have been another episode or two also...

At the end of the pilot episode, Michael reminds Devon that the Knight 2000 is "My car... I have the registration." Obviously, this is something that Devon/the Foundation rectified later on! In terms of the early episodes, this was clearly designed to be a cause of conflict between Michael and Devon, before they became close friends, or more of a father/son relationship.

Regarding the actual registration, Michael was supposed to be untraceable; I guess it would make more sense in that case to only include Michael on those documents.

[krfan1]

Interesting, I never knew that Larson wanted KITT installed in Long's actual car. I recall Devon from the pilot saying, "Any resemblance between this car, and yours, is superficial." I took that to mean not only was KITT totally modified, unlike Long's T/A, that it also wasn't even the same physical car. I always assumed that Long just happened to drive the same car Wilton had picked.

--krfan1