Another Knight Rider movie, pilot for 2008! - Merged! (1 Viewer)

[Jonny P]

Of all the attempts to re-ignite "Knight Rider," I think this was one of the better attempts.

I own all four seasons of the original on DVD. This show captures the feeling of that show -- cheesy and corny, but fun.

When you hear interviews with Hasselhoff and Glen Larson, the original idea behind "Knight Rider" in the 80s was to have it as a show that families could watch.

My wife and I were about 10 at the time the show first aired. She didn't get to watch a lot of TV as a kid, and one of her fondest memories was watching the show as a girl on Friday nights.

I don't want to watch some dark, brooding redux like the new "Battlestar Galactica" (a good show, but a show that wore on me).

I, for one, hope that it gets picked up as a series. I think they crafted a fairly general "pilot" movie, so they could go many different directions.

Hasselhoff can return for various story arcs on the series.

Plus...they can introduce a new K.A.R.R.!!!!

 

[Henry Gale]

Please forgive some nit picking.
Val Kilmer (K.I.T.T) knew how to find Mike's service records, appearances on security video, ATM activity, etc.....but had no access to death records or obits and thus was unaware of Sarah's mother's passing.

How come my Google Earth won't work in real time?

The sheriff was a bad guy. Four year olds would have seen that coming.

For awhile I thought Mike & Sarah were gonna be siblings but, that would have been too Lone Star for network TV.

 

[Kyle]

They didn't totally forget the Knight 2000. At the beginning, the "bad guys" break into the house and see the 5.7L "Tuned Port Injection" engine. (Thats a GM engine for you Non- car types. Then seconds later they had a closeup on something like a name plate that said Knight2000 and then the CA "Knight" License plate. I think it was there way of acknowledging the "old Transam" and the ugly red front wheel drive thing that the Knight2000 was. I'm thinking it has potential.

just my .02

 

[Tony J Case]

*takes HUGE swig of haterade*

Wow, what a piece of crap. Putting aside that we got 3 minutes of commercials for every 7 of TV show (I timed it), this thing was dreadful! Kitt didnt actually --DO-- anything! He's bulletproof and he changes color! Big deal! What about the jumping through moving trains and crashing through walls and stuff?!? Lets see some supercar ACTION!

Where the hell is the "voom-voom" cylon noise? Why is the 3000 flat and emotionless when the 2000 had some variation to his speech? There was no plot to speak of! "Lets drive to vegas, pick up the new Knight and drive back to LA while the bad guys shoot at us".

And the theme sucks. The first one wasnt a brilliant piece of music, but at least it wasnt a god-damned casio keyboard thrown into a mutherfuckin blender set to "Trance Puree"!

And then I kept getting assaulted by fast food and car commercicals just as I was getting envolved in the story. How can you people watch broadcast television? That's utter bollox! Christ, I'll go back to bittorrenting what few shows I watch instead of this nonsense.

ARRRGH! NERRRRD RRRRRAAAAAGGGEE!

 

[Nelson Au]

I was in college when the original series aired, so I was still a kid in a sense. I liked it then, as mentioned above, it was good clean fun. And from what I was reading, the new creators of this new movie have the same intentions.

Watching this new TV movie as an older adult, I thought it was awful at times and endearing at others. Bionic Woman came to mind too, though of the 3 episodes I saw of that, that seemed better then this at times. If it had a slightly more serious tone, it could work for a modern audience. I don't know.

The new Mike was a goof. I'm not sure why hired him as the lead. It was almost amatuer hour with that actor, he was better in the Ford commercials. The Hoff was okay, and it was nice they worked out the Michael Knight story arc into the story. No doubt they'll fill in the blanks if it goes to series. I wonder when that would be, Fall 2008 TV Season I guess.

The car was cooler in it's Shelby KR mode, the super pursuit mode was goofy with the wing.

Whose going to enter to win a car?

 

[Tom Keels]

I told my wife half way through the show that I'd like to take the producers out back and kick them all in the crotch. They completely missed what the show is about. Then they "tried" to kick it up a notch. You can almost see the developer meetings....

"Let's make the FBI agent a hot lesbian"

"Let's make all the 'good' cars Fords and all the 'bad' cars Chevys"

"Let's make the two leads have a sappy love history"

"We should give Mike a reason to help out. I know, we'll kill his Mom. But wait we don't know her. We'll cut 3 min of her together...NO PROBLEM.

"What about turbo boost? Ehh, nobody will like that, it has to be more real, cars can't jump in real life"

"How do we do SPM? Let's add a second spoiler, that will make the car look faster."

"We need a car chase. But wait, KITT can go over 200 mph. Well, you can't see all the Ford emblems at that speed so we'll have them go 25 up a mountain road and all the passing cars will be Fords!"
-- Ford Execs in the corner...."Excellent!"


M E H.

 

[Dave_Brown]

I think the Cobra embelm got more screen time than any of the actors. And for a car that can go 200 mph, it sure did seem like they had a hard time getting ahead of that SUV for the explosive collision at the end. Or maybe the SUV was doing a buck eighty?

 

[todd s]

Exec.#2-- "Well now we can tell the gay/lesbian groups we are showing gay/lesbian characters in our shows."

Exec.#3-- "Brilliant!"

:rolleyes

 

[Phil Florian]

Wow, it is sad that so much in-show advertising didn't turn out less off-show advertising. One would think basically an hour and a half of money shots of a new Ford Car would allow us a break on more ads (with actor from the show!) showing us the same car (with a few others). I thought in-show advertising was going to replace commercials. Guess not.

That said, the show was pretty bad. Not "Bad" as in so bad it is fun but bad as in bland. No interesting characters (even with the awesome Bruce Davison on board), no tense moments, nothing short of predictable and nothing funny. Val was fine as KITT but how long will he hang out until the magic "voice change" software down the road? Bring in William Daniels and be done with it. Or if he is too old and not interested, do Billy West imitating William Daniels. There. No stunts to speak of...mostly commercial-like shots of the car driving through mountain roads...wow, how original. All that was missing from those shots were "Driving done on closed tracks by professional driver" printed at the bottom. And something about MSRP.

No, this will go the way of Bionic Woman and Terminator as not enough to keep me coming back.

 

[Chris_Morris]

I was pretty iffy on this most of the way through. The last 15 or so minutes (from the funeral to the end) just seemed to strike a chord and finally made it look and feel like Knight Rider. Based on those last minutes, I would set a season pass for this if it gets picked up.

Things I liked:
Val Kilmer as K.I.T.T, while no William Daniels, he had the mannerism and slight sarcasm down pretty good.

The fact that this was a sequel and not a "reimagining".

Exchanging the semi for a plane. Though it seems like it would be hard to be secretive when you are landing a huge plane on desert highways.

Things I didn't like:
The second spoiler in SPM. Seemed way too "Fast and Furious" like, playing up to the crowd that thinks the more fiberglass junk you add to your car, the faster it will go. Looking like the NASCAR CoT would have been better.

The fact that the bad guys got everywhere just as quick, even when K.I.T.T makes a 600 mile trip in 3 hours, the bad guys know exactly where to go and get there first.


*edit* Based on the 18-49 ratings, I'll be surprised if this is not on the fall schedule

 

[Nelson Au]

I was curious, so I looked it up, here's the pertainant stuff from Zap 2 It:

For the night, ABC averaged a 6.6 rating/11 share to snag the top spot. CBS finished second in households at 5.9/9, but NBC, 5.4/9, had more total viewers (a shade over 10 million, to CBS' 9.22 million). FOX, 4.3/7, came in fourth, while The CW was barely a blip at 0.6/1.

NBC scored a 4.0 rating among adults 18-49 to take the top spot in the advertisers favorite demographic. ABC wasn't far behind at 3.7. FOX, 3.2, took third, followed by CBS, 2.1, and The CW, which drew a puny 0.3.

"EM: Home Edition" jumped up to 8.4/13 at 9 p.m., keeping ABC on top. NBC's "Knight Rider" movie/back-door pilot scored a 6.9/10 to take second, beating "Cold Case," 6.1/9, on CBS. "Family Guy," 4.3/6, and "American Dad," 3.3/5, were fourth for FOX. The CW finished its night with reruns of "Girlfriends" and "The Game."

At 10 p.m., "Knight Rider" delivered a 7.3/12 (and a healthy 5.1 adults 18-49 rating) for NBC. ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" posted a 5.7/9, while the debut of a cleaned-up "Dexter" on CBS earned a 5.2/9.

 

[Chris_Morris]

That gap in CBS's ratings shows that they are still struggling to outgrow the label of "Old People's Channel". Even with Big Brother, a show aimed squarely at the 18-49 group, their rating in that group is horrendous.

 

[Jeff*S*C*]

Since I mainly love KR because of KITT here are my complaints:

For the love of god give KITT his personality back. He talked like a person not a frikkin robot.

I guess since this was more of an origin "ep" they didn't have more time but show more KITT features. We get it, he's fast, bulletproof and a super computer. Where's turbo boost or anything new in that vein? (the camo is just ok)

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I like the new KITT even though I was very aprehensive about it at first. I still don't care for how the scanner looks, though, it looks like he's frowning and it doiesn't flow well with the front of the car.

I also miss hearing William Daniels' voice.

I also liked the pilot, I like that they connected this show with the original one which I was a HUGE fan of growing up.

I'll stick around awhile.

 

[Ockeghem]

I too enjoyed the film, even though it wasn't perfect. I hope it becomes a series. I wonder when if and when it will be picked up? I loved the car (and I didn't think I would). I also liked the new Michael, and seeing the original Michael was a nice treat as well. Maybe if the series is a go, we'll get to see special appearances by either Bonnie or April (or both). I also thought Sarah did a fine job in her role, and look forward to seeing her again.

I loved seeing Susan Gibney (she of roles in both TNG and DS9). I wish she didn't have to die, as having her in the series would have been a bonus.

Some of the highlights for me were that K.I.T.T. wasn't indestructable, especially after it is deactivated. I loved the morphing abilities, and the dependency on standard fuel sources. I heard that it gets 167 m.p.h. I could use that kind of gas mileage myself. I thought that the car accident would not have any survivors, but I guess it was in the script.

 

[Nelson Au]

As an aside, the new Mustang is the Shelby GT 500 KR. As an old time Mustang fan and vintage Mustang owner, that particular group will know that KR stands for King of the Road. But here, non car fans may not realize and think KR stands for Knight Rider. A coincidence, and a Ford promotional jackpot for them.

The hood of the GT 500 has those snouts and the designer of KITT decided to use them for the red glowing scanner lights, a convenient component.

By the way, I took a quick look at my DVR recording and saw the Firebird KITT in the shadows of the garage when the bad guys were in there. (I can't believe I am still talking about this movie!)

 

[Garrett Adams]

Script notes: good guys exit from the core motel area and make for Kitt (the bullet-proof car). Once you are at Kitt get reacquainted and schmooze until the bad guys can find you. Repeat! Do not get in the bullet-proof car.

 

[Bob Graz]

I thought the "bad" guys driving a Ford Edge (bad guy car?) and keeping up with the Mustang Cobra was a bit silly.

 

[Holadem]

Yeah the car was pretty tame last night.

But there is another problem: Back in the early-mid 80s, smart, talking cars were the province of science fiction.

Today, talking cars (and other devices) are routine, and if the commercials are to be believed (I've never seen one), we now have cars who can parallel-park themselves. You integrate that technology (I am guessing an array of sensors) with GPS and it's easy to see that working prototypes of vehicles than can drive themselves are no more than a couple of years away (if they do no already exist.) It's not science fiction, it's pretty much reality at this point.

Given that the "Wow" factor is as big as the imagination leap required between the viewer and the technology, you can see why no one is drooling about the new KITT just yet. Still, way that SUV got dispatched was pretty badass. But they need some groundbreaking technology, though I don't know if it's possible: Back then, the very concept of a smart car was all by itself the coolest thing you could think of.

--
H

 

[Tom Brennan]

I enjoyed it for the most part, it was fun and I like the car. The ties to the original series seemed to be very loose and obviously not a focal point of this movie. Many of the references to the original seemed to be a situation of a "plot to be filled in later" than any real explanation. Fair enough, but I would have liked some solid background info.

I would like to know if this KITT is an upgraded version of the original (with a new voice and new technology) or simply a new version started from scratch. If that's the case, then what happened to the original KITT? Does Michael have it? Probably not a concern for most viewers, but as a fan of the original, I would like to see some of those points clarified should it morph into a regular series.