"Knight Rider 2000" Continuity Vs. "Knight Rider (’08)"
Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:03 pm
This was briefly brought up in another thread but I feel it deserves its own topic. As we all know Knight Rider 2000 has always been heavily hated by most fans, but I always felt it had some good continuity with the main characters. I'm not talking about President Quayle, cryogenic prisons or ultrasonic handguns here, I'm talking about Michael, K.I.T.T. and Devon. I've said it in the past but I will say it again: There were logical extrapolations of Michael, K.I.T.T. and Devon's fates. The writers even went so far as to bring back the ’57 Chevy that Michael spoke about in one episode. (It was terrible how K.I.T.T. was installed into it, but I'm just pointing out how much they paid attention to details of the original series.) The original series kept hinting at Michael burning out, and KR2K showed him burnt out. They explained IN DETAIL what happened to K.I.T.T. and it made sense that he would be discarded, dismantled and rendered obsolete. It also made perfect sense that Devon would continue his work with the Foundation with new members who had their own agenda (sound familiar to what's going on with the new show, hmm?). It was realistic that Michael and Devon would try to salvage K.I.T.T.'s sold-off parts (bizarre where the story went with it, but again it's logical that they'd make an attempt to get the parts). Alright, so Michael is all of a sudden an electronics whiz when he never was in the original series. But it's a lot easier of a pill to swallow to presume that in the 10 years since Michael left the Foundation that he tinkered around with some electronics at some point.
With the new series starting with the backdoor pilot, we were treated to revisionist history where we were supposed to accept that Michael fathered a child and had the woman he knocked up and his child relocated without ever thinking about them again. It's a big stretch, but thinking about it hard enough, fans were able to arguably force it to make it work with various theories. We also had to accept that this new character, Charles Graiman, was truly the one who built the original K.I.T.T. and not Wilton Knight. We saw literally bits and pieces of K.I.T.T. in a garage but never an explanation as to why they were there or what was really going on.
Flash forward to the new series. Mike mentions that his father's name is Michael Long. Check. Alex Torres mysteriously picks the names Devon and Bonnie for Billy and Zoey when they go undercover. If this were a real sequel, that's a big coincidence that Torres would pull those names out of a hat when he should've been aware of the real Devon and Bonnie. Clearly it was a nod to the fans of the original, but that simple nod doesn't even completely make sense. We never heard of the Knight 2000 again, either. We finally got a mention of F.L.A.G., at least, which seems to make sense since they acknowledge it once existed but was shut down. However, they decide to bring back a character by the name of K.A.R.R. (at first it was the Knight Automated-cybernetic Roving Robotic-exoskeleton or some crap like that, and then he ends up being the Knight Automated Roving Robot again). Well, the acronym with all the extra in-between words would have worked much better because it implies that it's a new character. But what do the writers do? Drop the extra words and stick to the original acronym further confusing anyone trying to figure out if it's the same character or not. Then to top it off, they get the same voice actor to return to voice a new character of the same name. Good luck trying to figure that out. Oh, yeah, and who was that mysterious Jenny character again? When and where was she supposed to be in the original show? Another case of "we'll figure that out later...maybe"?
With all of the bashing KR2K gets for being watered down and depressing and sometimes downright bizarre, it paid way more attention to details of the original series than the new series has. As KR2K proved, continuity and returning stars aren't enough to make a good movie. But it certainly makes all the difference when trying to establish yourself as a sequel. You know things are bad when a bad movie pays more attention to detail than the new series does.
As you can see, it drives me crazy when continuity is botched up or just downright ignored. But then some members here shrug it off and say, "I'm no slave to continuity" as if anyone who actually cares about the storyline is an overanalyzing die-hard fan. We all post on this board and are all die-hard fans to a degree. And going by that logic, I guess the writers can literally do whatever they want and it's OK with some people. If anything, I may be cynical but I think people need to realize the bigger picture here sometimes.
Anyway, what do you guys think?
With the new series starting with the backdoor pilot, we were treated to revisionist history where we were supposed to accept that Michael fathered a child and had the woman he knocked up and his child relocated without ever thinking about them again. It's a big stretch, but thinking about it hard enough, fans were able to arguably force it to make it work with various theories. We also had to accept that this new character, Charles Graiman, was truly the one who built the original K.I.T.T. and not Wilton Knight. We saw literally bits and pieces of K.I.T.T. in a garage but never an explanation as to why they were there or what was really going on.
Flash forward to the new series. Mike mentions that his father's name is Michael Long. Check. Alex Torres mysteriously picks the names Devon and Bonnie for Billy and Zoey when they go undercover. If this were a real sequel, that's a big coincidence that Torres would pull those names out of a hat when he should've been aware of the real Devon and Bonnie. Clearly it was a nod to the fans of the original, but that simple nod doesn't even completely make sense. We never heard of the Knight 2000 again, either. We finally got a mention of F.L.A.G., at least, which seems to make sense since they acknowledge it once existed but was shut down. However, they decide to bring back a character by the name of K.A.R.R. (at first it was the Knight Automated-cybernetic Roving Robotic-exoskeleton or some crap like that, and then he ends up being the Knight Automated Roving Robot again). Well, the acronym with all the extra in-between words would have worked much better because it implies that it's a new character. But what do the writers do? Drop the extra words and stick to the original acronym further confusing anyone trying to figure out if it's the same character or not. Then to top it off, they get the same voice actor to return to voice a new character of the same name. Good luck trying to figure that out. Oh, yeah, and who was that mysterious Jenny character again? When and where was she supposed to be in the original show? Another case of "we'll figure that out later...maybe"?
With all of the bashing KR2K gets for being watered down and depressing and sometimes downright bizarre, it paid way more attention to details of the original series than the new series has. As KR2K proved, continuity and returning stars aren't enough to make a good movie. But it certainly makes all the difference when trying to establish yourself as a sequel. You know things are bad when a bad movie pays more attention to detail than the new series does.
As you can see, it drives me crazy when continuity is botched up or just downright ignored. But then some members here shrug it off and say, "I'm no slave to continuity" as if anyone who actually cares about the storyline is an overanalyzing die-hard fan. We all post on this board and are all die-hard fans to a degree. And going by that logic, I guess the writers can literally do whatever they want and it's OK with some people. If anything, I may be cynical but I think people need to realize the bigger picture here sometimes.
Anyway, what do you guys think?
Seeing as how bad the continuity has become, the issue of the Knight 4000 coming before the Knight 3000 at this point has somehow become completely irrelevant compared to everything else. That just goes to show you the original intentions of honoring continuity in the backdoor pilot, because it was decided at the last minute to remove the Knight 4000 since it wouldn't make sense coming before the 3000. 
loll
