Why the blacked out windows?

[Sue]

the remote control part is actually it's own unit and can be installed on any of the cars(if needed), so i was told. i was on set a few times for the Pilot filming. the scene where KITT picks Sarah up from school is one that i watched being filmed. they had a stunt driver all dressed in bright green from the top up driving KITT. same color greeen as a green screen. i was told that during editing, they go back and digitally erase the driver from the shots.

That's true about the remote being used in other cars. It was used in Journey to the End of Knight to drive the car off the cliff I do believe.

[Drifty]

The comment about Knight Fever where Ki3t drove himself minus the blacked out windows......someone was driving him lol If you look VERY carefully, you can see a head.....

[Rockatteer]

The blacked out windows might actually serve a purpose within the story line too.

It would stop attention being draw to Kitt has he barreled down a highway with no driver.

It's conceivable that in order to get to the hospital, for example, Kitt would have had to drive through town, along busy roads, stop at traffic lights. Having clear windows would allow people to see there was no driver and probably caused a bit of a "to-do"

So black windows would be a good idea.

[Lost Knight]

The blacked out windows might actually serve a purpose within the story line too.

It would stop attention being draw to Kitt has he barreled down a highway with no driver.

It's conceivable that in order to get to the hospital, for example, Kitt would have had to drive through town, along busy roads, stop at traffic lights. Having clear windows would allow people to see there was no driver and probably caused a bit of a "to-do"

So black windows would be a good idea.

Yes, this point of view has been brought up a couple of times so far, I think earlier in this thread as well. I still say who cares if anyone sees K.I.T.T. without a driver? Is anyone going to catch him? Is anyone going to break in and steal him? Certainly not. He's constantly chased by cops all the time and they can never match his speed. He also has the ability to change his license plate at will and his ENTIRE appearance for that matter. He has his secret hideout at the S.C.C. where nobody knows its exact location (including us, the viewers!). The tinted windows aren't really necessary for these reasons.

For me, the storyline points (or point, rather) where K.I.T.T.'s tinted windows made sense was in "Don't Stop the Knight" where Mike had to fool the villain of the week that he was sitting in K.I.T.T. Incidentally, that was the plot point responsible for having the crew tint one of the stunt cars it turns out.

[Rockatteer]

Yes, this point of view has been brought up a couple of times so far, I think earlier in this thread as well. I still say who cares if anyone sees K.I.T.T. without a driver? Is anyone going to catch him? Is anyone going to break in and steal him? Certainly not. He's constantly chased by cops all the time and they can never match his speed. He also has the ability to change his license plate at will and his ENTIRE appearance for that matter. He has his secret hideout at the S.C.C. where nobody knows its exact location (including us, the viewers!). The tinted windows aren't really necessary for these reasons.

Prevention is better than cure.

Why even bother with having to waste valuable time to loose a cop car or change colors etc when your taking a sick person to the hospital, when you can simply tint your windows and completely avoid the whole situation? Your telling me that isn't a better option?

[Lost Knight]

Why even bother with having to loose a cop car or change colors etc when your taking a sick person to the hospital, when you can simply tint your windows and completely avoid the whole situation? Your telling me that isn't a better option?

Not when it's an action show whose emphasis should be on the car's abilities the way they had always been done in the past. That's basically saying a speeding car breaking the law with tinted windows is better than a speeding car breaking the law without tinted windows. When K.I.T.T. is driving himself, it's typically because of some type of emergency where he has to bend/break the law anyway, but I digress.

[Knight2000]

KI3T, parked on the side of the road, is doing some stuff on his screen while Mike's in the field, when a lone woman walks by and sees the orb...curious, she steps closer and peers through the passenger-side door at the windshield, where she sees an amazing computer display. Entranced, she watches, wondering, until the window suddenly becomes opaque. She steps back a bit with a really perplexed look on her face.

KI2T, on occasion, has darkened his windows to avoid intruding eyes.

from a story standpoint, it makes sense: although KITT isn't a complete secret, the fewer people who know about him, the better.

With the advent of camera phones, the internet, forums, etc, it would be easy for someone to take a clip/pic of KI3T cruising driverless, stick it on the net, it gets spead round, suddenly everyone knows that there's a black mustang that was driverless. Top secret!

[Rockatteer]

Yeah good point. The show has to reflect the times of which it is made. And the possibilities of Kitt getting snapped driving alone is much higher now as Knight2000 pointed out.

So I think there is reasonable excuse within the storyline for Kitt to have black windows.

However, one of the defining elements of the original Knight Rider was that we saw peoples reactions to the driver less car as well as actually seeing Kitt driving by himself. So from that perspective I think we could do with some scenes where we can actually see the empty drivers seat and maybe even some dumb-founded passers by.

Maybe just the scenes where Kitt isn't moving very far.. like coming from the parking lot to save Micheal, that kind of scene could be done with clear windows. That would help the viewer suspend disbelief quite a lot I think and relaly sell the illusion.

[Faithful Car KRO]

With the advent of camera phones, the internet, forums, etc, it would be easy for someone to take a clip/pic of KI3T cruising driverless, stick it on the net, it gets spead round, suddenly everyone knows that there's a black mustang that was driverless. Top secret!

Mike even mentioned that in A Hard Day's Knight.
KI3T: May I discard my disguise aswell, Micheal.
Mike: Sure, but be carefall, we don't want camera phone footage of you transforming on YouTube.

[BlueChaos]

Hmmm...
How about using CGI for the KITT's driving scenes, so we won't need the tinted windows?
I know it's expensive and maybe it won't look so good, but hey, we gotta make a choice, right?

[Rockatteer]

Hmmm...
How about using CGI for the KITT's driving scenes, so we won't need the tinted windows?
I know it's expensive and maybe it won't look so good, but hey, we gotta make a choice, right?

No actually we don't have to make a choice.

They have a fully remote control version of Kitt which is supposed to be used for exactly those scenes as well as the top mounted driving rig. Neither of which appear to be in use for the making of this show.

I know I've just previously put up an argument for why Kitt would have tinted windows... but it really is a damn lazy way out for GST and co.

[BlueChaos]

You mean the remote control car previewed in the Jay Leno show that can be controlled up to a mile away? Hmmm yeah I wonder where did that car go, though they will have to revamp a lot of the interior to make it look like the series' interior...

...but then again I don't think you can properly do stunts such as 180s and drifts with that remote controlled car? It would have been too damn difficult, and I don't think you can do high-speed driving with that remote car. Maybe only for moving the car around a bit (which is why I think KITT shouldn't use the blacked out windows during the bank heist episode since he's only moving around the bank a bit once in a while).

[Faithful Car KRO]

You mean the remote control car previewed in the Jay Leno show that can be controlled up to a mile away? Hmmm yeah I wonder where did that car go, though they will have to revamp a lot of the interior to make it look like the series' interior...

...but then again I don't think you can properly do stunts such as 180s and drifts with that remote controlled car? It would have been too damn difficult, and I don't think you can do high-speed driving with that remote car. Maybe only for moving the car around a bit (which is why I think KITT shouldn't use the blacked out windows during the bank heist episode since he's only moving around the bank a bit once in a while).

If you recall for that episode, KI3Ts windows were already tinted, as he was driving a sleeping Mike in the passenger seat. KI3T probably just never untinted the windows.

[Lost Knight]

Guys, I think you'll benefit from reading the entire thread and not the last few posts. All vehicles from the backdoor pilot were both auctioned off and destroyed.

[Knight2000]

...but then again I don't think you can properly do stunts such as 180s and drifts with that remote controlled car?

It can be done - I've seen videos of cars rigged to do stunts and racetracks and controlled remotely.

Anyway, mute point given the cars were sold off. Would have been better to keep and use them.

[Rockatteer]

Guys, I think you'll benefit from reading the entire thread and not the last few posts. All vehicles from the backdoor pilot were both auctioned off and destroyed.

According to the post is was only 2 "main" vehicles, not the remote control car, or the frame on top car. And I didn't see any mention of destroying the vehicles.. unless it's in a different post that I missed?

[Mr.Marcus]

Its to hide the stunt driver.

[vertigo778]

The windows are blacked out when the stunt driver is too visible, plain and simple. There's no other *fast* way to do it,and I stress fast because they have to shoot as much car as they can as fast as they can.

The remote control unit is a separate device, and was in the fact the very same unit you saw in the truck in "Knight of the Hunter". It just takes too long to set up and use on a tv schedule most of the time except in special cases.

[Lost Knight]

According to the post is was only 2 "main" vehicles, not the remote control car, or the frame on top car. And I didn't see any mention of destroying the vehicles.. unless it's in a different post that I missed?

Sorry, I meant that some of the same points of view were already brought up earlier in the thread, not referring to the cars' fates. Yes, the Attack Car and the regular Hero Car were auctioned off, and I believe the other 6 or 7 vehicles including the touring cars were destroyed.

[BlueChaos]

If we are to take the blacked out windows from the story standpoint (that is, to keep a secret), it would be nice to see an effect of KITT blackening his windows when he went driving driverless, and unblackening his windows once Mike is in and driving by himself. As of the moment the car's windows is magically black when KITT is driving and then suddenly clear when Mike is driving. A "transition effect" between the two would help to bring the realism along, but I guess that takes too many seconds away from the show.

[Lynda414]

If we are to take the blacked out windows from the story standpoint (that is, to keep a secret), it would be nice to see an effect of KITT blackening his windows when he went driving driverless, and unblackening his windows once Mike is in and driving by himself. As of the moment the car's windows is magically black when KITT is driving and then suddenly clear when Mike is driving. A "transition effect" between the two would help to bring the realism along, but I guess that takes too many seconds away from the show.

They only need to do it once or twice a season. After we see it once, it'll be in our minds that that's what happens when KITT goes driverless. You could evern have Mike say. "KITT, black your windows, someone will see you don't have a driver."

[lunchmeat]

If we are to take the blacked out windows from the story standpoint (that is, to keep a secret), it would be nice to see an effect of KITT blackening his windows when he went driving driverless, and unblackening his windows once Mike is in and driving by himself. As of the moment the car's windows is magically black when KITT is driving and then suddenly clear when Mike is driving. A "transition effect" between the two would help to bring the realism along, but I guess that takes too many seconds away from the show.

They only need to do it once or twice a season. After we see it once, it'll be in our minds that that's what happens when KITT goes driverless. You could evern have Mike say. "KITT, black your windows, someone will see you don't have a driver."

Lynda's right - once you've established something like this, you don't need to go through the motions of always showing the full thing. (TOS seeemd to do this a lot, and it got a bit cheesy after a bit - they always used a cutscene to show a specific action.) Eventually, I'd like to see this happen with the transformations; Masterkey's done a great job with the animations, but if the editors/writers can pull off a transformation scene without having to show the transformation, it will save time in the episode and money from the budget. (I personally would love to see a scene where KI3T speeds into a tunnel in Normal Mode, we hear the transform sound, and we see him speed out the other end in Attack Mode.)

They will probably need to show the effect for a little while, though - many people have been conditioned by the "show everything" film style of TOS, and I think that some fans may be expecting that here.

[Lynda414]

If we are to take the blacked out windows from the story standpoint (that is, to keep a secret), it would be nice to see an effect of KITT blackening his windows when he went driving driverless, and unblackening his windows once Mike is in and driving by himself. As of the moment the car's windows is magically black when KITT is driving and then suddenly clear when Mike is driving. A "transition effect" between the two would help to bring the realism along, but I guess that takes too many seconds away from the show.

They only need to do it once or twice a season. After we see it once, it'll be in our minds that that's what happens when KITT goes driverless. You could evern have Mike say. "KITT, black your windows, someone will see you don't have a driver."

Lynda's right - once you've established something like this, you don't need to go through the motions of always showing the full thing. (TOS seeemd to do this a lot, and it got a bit cheesy after a bit - they always used a cutscene to show a specific action.) Eventually, I'd like to see this happen with the transformations; Masterkey's done a great job with the animations, but if the editors/writers can pull off a transformation scene without having to show the transformation, it will save time in the episode and money from the budget. (I personally would love to see a scene where KI3T speeds into a tunnel in Normal Mode, we hear the transform sound, and we see him speed out the other end in Attack Mode.)

They will probably need to show the effect for a little while, though - many people have been conditioned by the "show everything" film style of TOS, and I think that some fans may be expecting that here.

Ooo, the Tunnel idea is a good one, I would like to see that.

[BlueChaos]

I think they did it once in Knight of the Hunter, when Truck-KITT was blown off the road and went into repair mode, he suddenly reverted back to Normal Mode when he was picking up Mike without the transformation being shown on screen.

Also in the jailbreak scene during the two-parter, after Billy said that Mike should get creative, KITT transformed into Attack Mode even without Mike saying Transform to Attack Mode onscreen and without the transformation being shown onscreen, so I guess it can be done.

[lunchmeat]

That's true. The jailbreak scene was one of the best ones in that regard - I liked the whole "hey, what is that" with the guard seeing KI3T in Attack Mode through the binoculars, approaching at very high speed. It fit the pacing really well and saved valuable time.

They could do a really cool scene where KI3T is driving on a crowded highway, really fast, avoiding traffic and the like. (Think of the freeway scene from The Matrix: Reloaded.) - and we're seeing this from a side view. We see KI3T weaving through traffic, and he passes some semis and large trucks on one side.....while the camera's passing on the other. He's transforming into Attack Mode at this time....but because he's passing behind vehicles, we only catch glimpses of this; kind of like a "strobe" effect. I think it could be really cool...I only wish that I could make an example of what I'm seeing in my mind.

But yeah....I'm open to creative scenes like this.