Junk Yard Dog plot holes

[Akaihiryuu]

I can see why they did this episode...it was to give some insight into how KITT was made. However, it's got some plot holes. Okay, so KITT is dropped into an acid pit. His molecular bonded shell isn't even damaged by a cutting torch, why would acid have any effect? Even if it did, how did the acid manage to gut the entire inside of the car, leaving no trace of anything? Weren't all the windows closed? When they pulled KITT out of the pit, the windows and rear hatch were opened...why? Previous episodes have shown the inside of the car to be airtight. Sure, the molecular bonded shell is vulnerable to some chemicals (as shown in the season 4 opener), but this borders on silly. Assume the acid was capable of dissolving plastics and acrylics...certainly believable. Maybe it dissolved the windows. But it didn't dissolve the rear hatch window. If the windows were made of regular car safety glass and just covered by a molecular bonded shell, acid wouldn't have had much effect on it. Glass is pretty inert when it comes to reacting with acid. Also, when they pulled KITT out of the pit, the tires were still there and intact. Acid corrosive enough to do that much damage to KITT certainly would've eaten the tires away. It's obvious that they just took a Trans-Am frame with most of the internal components removed (carpets, seats, dash, etc) and pulled it out of some mud in front of a camera. I think it was neat bringing back the team that built KITT and basically rebuilding him (I guess so we can see how it was done, they didn't show much of KITT being built in the pilot episode), but they could've done it much better than they did.

[Lost Knight]

The way I've always explained the tires is that they were of a separate compound different from ordinary rubber. (As evidenced by the fact that the tires are bullet/puncture proof, except for high-concentrated lasers.) As for the acid getting inside the car, my explanation is that the Molecular Bonded Shell was never applied underneath K.I.T.T., and that it got into his interior from the bottom up. The glass is anyone's guess; why would the T-top and rear hatch remain intact when the side windows and windshield were gone?

[reverber]

i have just thought of a theory, hydrofluoric acid its a weak acid, but due to its chemical composition, it eats glass, perhaps the trunk and ttops were made of thicker glass then the other windows so it dissolved them before it could dissolve the others. the only way to store this acid is in plastic bottles, so because the tyre were rubber \ plastic they survived (what was kitts dash made of in the series, plastic or fibre glass or was it never explained) even plastic is dissolved by this acid just some quicker then others


as kitt says in kotp " it was just a thought"

[whet]

To put How did they manage to find Kitt to pull him out of the pit?

if it's acid you would get no where near it to attach a toe connection,

Not to mention finding exactly where Kitt was in the pit.

How deep it was etc.

[Akaihiryuu]

Yeah, the whole acid pit was just too much of a convenient plot device. When KITT earlier in the episode was talking about the residue on the road (which was the same stuff in the acid pit), he mentioned that it was mostly benzene and polyvinyl chloride. Now, this is a rather toxic combination, it'd make someone very sick or kill them, but I can't see it having any effect on a car. Benzene is a major component of gasoline. It's what gives gasoline its odor. Sure, it's a solvent, gasolene is a solvent, but it's really only a solvent to organic materials. I can't see it affecting metal at all. PVC is a rather common chemical also. The only acids I can think of that could possibly even begin to do the damage depicted are hydrochloric and nitric acid. Especially if mixed in the proper proportions...in this case it becomes "aqua regia" which is the only substance in existence that can react with gold. KITT's underside certainly has the molecular bonded shell...witness all the times KITT has driven over a stick of dynamite or something and come out unscathed. The only reason he was damaged in Knight of the Drones is because the rocket was sent into his exhaust system. I would've been a lot happier with this episode if they had depicted acid damage to the KITT realistically, keeping in mind all of the other things before that did no damage to him. Sure, the underhood area was probably not that well protected from that sort of thing (even being submerged in water caused malfunctions before), and that's where a lot of the computer components are...but having the windows and windshield but not rear hatch just disappear and having the entire car completely gutted with no trace of carpet, seats, dash, etc was not very realistic. And the tires certainly should've been gone entirely. Oh, and from what I got from the end of the episode (when the bulldozer falls in), the pit can't possibly be more than 4-5 feet deep at the most. It didn't even completely cover the bulldozer's tires.

[FuzzieDice]

The way I look at it, the acid was supposed to be a combination of different chemicals. Perhaps just the right kind that would eat through KITT. Furthermore, once it hit KITT's circuits, they could have went haywire enough to short out some stuff and cause things to malfuction, like opening a hatch, window, etc.

[Akaihiryuu]

That makes sense...I didn't think about that. One of the underhood components could've shorted and caused the windows to open or something. It could've also destroyed the mechanism that holds the windows open, which would cause them to fall down inside the door and probably break. I've seen that happen IRL before, on a car a friend of mine was working on that had a messed up interior. He went to crank the window down (no power windows but that wouldn't be much different), something went snap, and then window just fell down. Then the only question is, why didn't it eat the tires, and why was the car mostly empty of muck when they pulled it out? They didn't open the doors or anything to let the stuff out, unless it went out through the buttom. I think most of the plot holes here were either budget limitations or limitation of the special fx technologies of the time.

[neps]

We've had this discussion in the past before, and I'm not saying that means we can't have it now. But I remember one thing people like to point out is when KITT is being taken out of the pit, his keys are still okay and in the ignition. The entire interior is destroyed, cept for the keys.

[reverber]

i believe that just to be an oversight like in knight of the phoenix where kitt pulls into the garage while returning to michael after being stolen. i dont wanna spoil it but if youve seen it you'll know what i mean

[Akaihiryuu]

Dang, I never noticed that. I'll have to watch it again and look for the keys. Of course, the real reason the keys are in the ignition is probably so they could put the transmission in neutral on the car they were using (which probably just had the interior taken out) so they could tow it out of the mud hole they were using for special effects. ;P I wonder how they did the bubbly effects on the "acid pit"? I'm sure for the filming it was just a hole with water/mud in it. Being '84 with a limited budget, it couldn't have been anything too fancy.

[neps]

Here ya go


That's a good theory Akaihiryuu, but how can they do that when the gear shift has been disolved away:



And reverber, lets not worry about spoiling episodes for people. You are on a forum about a show that last aired an original episode 20 yrs ago (less if you count the tv movie). If people don't want to be spolied, they shouldn't come to a knight rider forum.

[Akaihiryuu]

Hm...interesting. I think the metal rod sticking up out of the hole in the center could be the gearshift actually. Maybe they didn't want to take the transmission or driveshaft out of the car they were using for that shot, and just took the interior out, sprayed mud everywhere, and left the keys in it so they could put it in neutral for easy towing. Of course, you could explain the "mud" in the plot as being the remainder of the interior after it was dissolved. Or maybe they just got a good deal on a TA body where the interior had been gutted by a fire or something.

[neps]

Well when you watch it in motion you'll see that hole is empty. What you are seeing is the emergency break overlayed.

Anyway, KITT was a part of a car right. Why did they spend alot of their time rebuilding a destroyed car? Couldn't they just purchase another Trans Am and work from that? Would have at least saved them from cleaning the mud.

[Akaihiryuu]

Maybe those keys have a molecular bonded shell and are thus indestructable? Hehe. I guess that is the emergency brake, I just didn't look close enough. However, that interior doesn't look like KITT at all, it looks like a stock Trans Am with the dash, seats, and carpet removed. KITT had a lot of modifications that just don't show up there. Ah well, you can't expect perfection from '84 with the limited budget that show had. I'm surprised they were able to do the special effects that they did do actually. I kinda wonder what Knight Rider would've been like if they had had the CG technology we have today when it was made. I really hope the Knight Rider movie comes out and that it's made by people who really understand the show. And I hope the rumor about Uwe Boll directing it is false.

[James_kr]

why did kitt still have headlights when he came out and why did kitt look so weird when he was sinking that really freaked me out especially the lines on the scanner.

[ShadowFlight]

@James_kr : They used a small model with a tiny scanner in it to let it down in the "mud".It was really scareing when I saw this episode at the age of 8/9, KITTs distorted voice "Michael, help !, hilfe Micheal ! " .No Idea how big the model was scaled actually, because the view point of the camera is too narrow, and you never see Michael and KITT at the same time.
That KITT on the forklift seems to be a real Firebird, but that car doesnt sink in when it reaches the "mud", they did a quick cut on that.

@Akaihiryuu :
Its not just the keys in the ignition, you can also see metal-connectors at the end of some wires.There should be no isolation-material on the wires at all, when the acid really was that corrosive
But after all, its a show, isn't it ?

[James_kr]

its just creapy with the scanner and having the white lines in between each light just looked wierd it would look way better using an ertl kitt with that scanner or the kenner kitt i didn't when kitt went down you see the headlights and they looked painted

[HungarianKnight]

It's maybe a stupid thing but how could they rebuild AND reprogram Kitt in a few days? Okay, the original creating team was there but still...

[Pierre]

remember it's just a show

[Lost Knight]

OK, this has been brought up in another thread before but I think it's a good question: How can K.I.T.T.'s A.I. be replaced? If he was completely destroyed, wouldn't he have to be created from scratch, and thus have to re-learn and redevelop his personality? Unless his entire A.I. was stored on a back up hard drive or something, but I highly doubt that.

[pewter 02ws6]

i think some of you are reading into it a little too much. it is just a tv show. we could go on for the next year asking the possibilites of real events from fake ones shown in the show.
now taking pokes at the show by pointing out the obvious mistakes is something different.

i can point out that everything inside the car is gone yet the plastic turn signal/cruise control switch is still there on the steering colum. i also liked at the very end when michael is standing in the mud at the very edge of the acid pit. this is acid infected mud but nothing happend to michael's boots. shouldn't they have melted instantly along with his feet and so on?

[Knight Rocker]

OK, this has been brought up in another thread before but I think it's a good question: How can K.I.T.T.'s A.I. be replaced? If he was completely destroyed, wouldn't he have to be created from scratch, and thus have to re-learn and redevelop his personality? Unless his entire A.I. was stored on a back up hard drive or something, but I highly doubt that.

I have to believe that somehow the CPU survived. Otherwise, like you said, he would have been the KITT from season 1 again with his more machine like personality.

[Matthew]

OK, this has been brought up in another thread before but I think it's a good question: How can K.I.T.T.'s A.I. be replaced? If he was completely destroyed, wouldn't he have to be created from scratch, and thus have to re-learn and redevelop his personality? Unless his entire A.I. was stored on a back up hard drive or something, but I highly doubt that.

I have to believe that somehow the CPU survived. Otherwise, like you said, he would have been the KITT from season 1 again with his more machine like personality.

The CPU didn't survive however. When Michael asked Bonnie how long it would take to repair Kitt after she had stated that he was completely destroyed, she told him that it wasn't a case of repairing him, but rather recreating him. The idea behind his successful recreation seemed to be that Kitt's essence, for the lack of a better term, had remained contained within the car, even after the severe damage since he was integrated into all of his systems.

Matt

[LMolineux]

Didnt KITT have a direct connection with FLAG meaning he must have sent backup data to FLAG at random times. Whats to say he didnt just backup his data and all just beforehand and it just had to be transfered. He might have drop loaded some data while he was being eaten up to FLAG as a preventative measure thus meaning his personality and being scared to go back to the scene of the event makign KITT nervous? Get my point. Yes re-creating him yes but with the backed up data being re-entered ontop of faster circuits and such. Meaning KITT would be alot faster and things that needed to be pruned weeded out of his memory had been also done. Just somethoughts.

[Matthew]

I would be inclined to agree that that would make the most sense LMolineux, however the facts of the episode simply don't support it. Kitt literally went through the reconstruction of his personality, as evidenced by Bonnie's anger at Michael for expecting Jokes and pratfalls from his parter the first time he spoke to him shortly after his reconstruction had begun.

Matt