Happy 5 year anniversary, KARR 2.0
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:57 pm
Today marks the 5th anniversary of “Knight to King’s Pawn”, KR08’s episode with KARR. I rewatched it, and I think it held up pretty well. In fact, I may have even enjoyed it more now than when it first aired (there was just SOOOO much hype and pressure on it for that first viewing!) So here are some of the things I really liked about it:
Peter Cullen as the voice of KARR
YES! They brought back the voice of KARR from the 80s.
Renaming KARR
In “Knight of the Living Dead” they hint at KARR a bit and KITT calls him the “Knight Auto-cybernetic Roving Robotic exoskeleton” which is too much a mouthful. In “Knight to King’s Pawn” Billy calls KARR the “Knight Automated Roving Robot.” Much better.
KARR as a robot
OK, I know this is controversial. But in 2008, with Transformers being a huge hit on the big screen, Knight Rider stayed with the times and gave us our own transforming killer robot.
It’s heavy
The episode opens with Sarah escaping to Hawaii after her father’s death, drinking away her sorrows. It’s not pretty, but there’s a certain “honesty” to her reaction. The events of the previous episode carry through.
The battle scene
It’s pretty cool watching KARR literally punch and toss KITT around.
Killing Torres
I liked Torres. I always think it’s interesting to have regular characters who have questionable ethics, so Torres created some good inner-conflict. But the show decided to weed down the cast a bit to focus more on Michael and KITT, so Torres had to go following the departure of Carrie and Charles.
Graiman’s speech
This episode completed the reboot of the series and gave the show a new focus. A holographic Graiman tells the team: “You can now be the Knight Industries that Wilton Knight always envisioned. You can reinstitute FLAG, the Foundation for Law And Government, completely autonomous, no more hidden agendas, no more interference… just what you think is right. You can make a difference, but you must decide.” I get chills just thinking about it. Anyone who complained that the show strayed too far from the original HAD to feel optimistic about the new direction for the series after hearing this.
Of course, it was far from perfect. They missed the boat on a few things:
Rushed ending
If ever there was a reason to have a two-part episode, this was it. The episode keeps building and building but we really don’t see KARR until the very end and then it’s rushed. The entire battle is about 90 seconds. I understand that the budget would only allow for 90 seconds of footage, but with some very simple editing they could have expanded it to even 5 or 10 minutes. Instead of having KARR talk DURING the action, why not do cutaways to his dialog and then go back to the action visuals? Cut in some scenes of Billy and Zoe racing to try and download new files into KITT to get his systems online. Whatever.
The Music
When Mike infiltrates a government compound to retrieve KITT, they blast AC/DC’s Rock ’N Roll Train, a new song at the time. I have nothing against AC/DC, but it just seemed really out of place in the episode
Bad editing
This is a nitpick but a big one. For the spectacular climax, KITT turbo boosts into KARR with a gigantic explosion. But because of some sloppy audio editing, when Mike says “KITT turbo boost now” KITT is already in the air before Mike finishes speaking. It was so close to being spectacular.
The big thing that got to me was Graiman's speech. It REALLY captured the potential and intentions of the writers of how they wanted to really revamp the show. At this point though the writing was already on the wall for the show and it wasn't going to get an extra chance.
Peter Cullen as the voice of KARR
YES! They brought back the voice of KARR from the 80s.
Renaming KARR
In “Knight of the Living Dead” they hint at KARR a bit and KITT calls him the “Knight Auto-cybernetic Roving Robotic exoskeleton” which is too much a mouthful. In “Knight to King’s Pawn” Billy calls KARR the “Knight Automated Roving Robot.” Much better.
KARR as a robot
OK, I know this is controversial. But in 2008, with Transformers being a huge hit on the big screen, Knight Rider stayed with the times and gave us our own transforming killer robot.
It’s heavy
The episode opens with Sarah escaping to Hawaii after her father’s death, drinking away her sorrows. It’s not pretty, but there’s a certain “honesty” to her reaction. The events of the previous episode carry through.
The battle scene
It’s pretty cool watching KARR literally punch and toss KITT around.
Killing Torres
I liked Torres. I always think it’s interesting to have regular characters who have questionable ethics, so Torres created some good inner-conflict. But the show decided to weed down the cast a bit to focus more on Michael and KITT, so Torres had to go following the departure of Carrie and Charles.
Graiman’s speech
This episode completed the reboot of the series and gave the show a new focus. A holographic Graiman tells the team: “You can now be the Knight Industries that Wilton Knight always envisioned. You can reinstitute FLAG, the Foundation for Law And Government, completely autonomous, no more hidden agendas, no more interference… just what you think is right. You can make a difference, but you must decide.” I get chills just thinking about it. Anyone who complained that the show strayed too far from the original HAD to feel optimistic about the new direction for the series after hearing this.
Of course, it was far from perfect. They missed the boat on a few things:
Rushed ending
If ever there was a reason to have a two-part episode, this was it. The episode keeps building and building but we really don’t see KARR until the very end and then it’s rushed. The entire battle is about 90 seconds. I understand that the budget would only allow for 90 seconds of footage, but with some very simple editing they could have expanded it to even 5 or 10 minutes. Instead of having KARR talk DURING the action, why not do cutaways to his dialog and then go back to the action visuals? Cut in some scenes of Billy and Zoe racing to try and download new files into KITT to get his systems online. Whatever.
The Music
When Mike infiltrates a government compound to retrieve KITT, they blast AC/DC’s Rock ’N Roll Train, a new song at the time. I have nothing against AC/DC, but it just seemed really out of place in the episode
Bad editing
This is a nitpick but a big one. For the spectacular climax, KITT turbo boosts into KARR with a gigantic explosion. But because of some sloppy audio editing, when Mike says “KITT turbo boost now” KITT is already in the air before Mike finishes speaking. It was so close to being spectacular.
The big thing that got to me was Graiman's speech. It REALLY captured the potential and intentions of the writers of how they wanted to really revamp the show. At this point though the writing was already on the wall for the show and it wasn't going to get an extra chance.