Knight Rider 2000 TV Movie, Inaccurate Timeline

[KNIGHT RAIDER]

In the early 90's, the Knight Rider 2000 TV movie aired on NBC, which saw the return of Michael Knight and KITT. Eventhough the setting takes place in the year 2000, there are several gaps in the timeline. We are now living in 2005 and there are no such thing as prisons that freeze convicts into suspended animation and nobody in the show had the modern style cell phones like what we have now in today's world.

[knightrider3000]

that would be because no one in the 90's could tell what the future would be like. if they knew what phones we would be using now back then they would have designed them back then and now we would be using even better ones

[Lost Knight]

No kidding, guys. However, there is one prediction that Knight Rider 2000 made that actually came true or will in the near future: the camera cell phone. While most phones have cameras now, the mainstream doesn't quite have direct connecting when on a call. In other words, we don't have phones where we can see the person on the other end while talking to them...for the general public anyway.

[Lyn]

i think the movie was set in the fictional year of 2000, not the real year 2000........

[Army_F_Body]

While were at it, where's all that cool stuf from 2001?

[CB2001]

No kidding, guys. However, there is one prediction that Knight Rider 2000 made that actually came true or will in the near future: the camera cell phone. While most phones have cameras now, the mainstream doesn't quite have direct connecting when on a call. In other words, we don't have phones where we can see the person on the other end while talking to them...for the general public anyway.

I believe the term for it Lost Knight is "personal video telecommunications". I know that telecommunications have tried to introduce video with a phone (i.e., the Albert Brooks movie "Mother" features a video phone with poor frame quality). Though now with streaming technology at its current state, there's no way for us to get a 30 frame per second live feed. But then again, "Knight Rider" used to have plenty of that, though not as confined as the cellphone as mentioned.

However, "Knight Rider" in general has introduced a variety of technology. Look at KITT for example. He was the first car to have a digital speedometer. He was able to plot out routes, like how we have the GPS tracking and OnStar services. And a few people in the customizing world have installed multimedia related computers into vehicles (there was an episode of "Pimp My Ride" where a kid's old Ford wasn't even fit to be on the road because it was being held together with glue, so Xhibit got a Scion and one of the things that the crew of East Coast Customs installed into the car was a touchscreen computer system). Though we've got a long ways to go before we have a vehicle that can drive itself and hold a normal conversation like KITT, we still have to be open to how communications go. I mean, as cool as it seems, some fictional technology we wish we could have (i.e. transporters, warp drive, starships, etc), it may in fact be a very long time (maybe even all of us here are gone) before we even get near to such technology.

Besides... TV shows and movies are meant to entertain. No one can predict the future. However, the future can be influenced. Look at "Star Trek". Personal communications on that show helped inspired the cellphones we have nowadays. Of course, that's just my opinion.

[Army_F_Body]

I agree CB2001. I'm sure when the 23rd century rolls around and tapes of Star Trek still exhist, people will laugh at the predictions made. I believe we may be millenia away from that kind of technology. The reason why movies like 2001 and KR2000 look goofy now is because we are still alive to see how things turned out. Gene Rodenbury was wise to project Star Trek way beyond out individual life spans.

Like the subtitle from last nights Futurama on Adult Swim said: "Prove this wont happen."

[KnightCrusader99]

Don't forget about Quantum Leap... it made some rather bizarre predictions of the future. What year did the show start off at, as in what year did the story start? I know it was sometime in the mid-to-late 90's.

And aslo don't forget, according to BTTF Part II, we should have hovering cars by 2015. (And Jaws 19).

And also in KR2K, didn't Maddock say that James Doohan was in the first ten Star Trek Movies? Well they were a little off in the years it would take to make ten, and Scotty was only in the first seven.

Oh well, I really love to see how they incorrectly predict what level of technology we would be at. It is fun for me.

-Steve

[edwardknight2005]

My only problem with Knight Rider 2000 was they took KITT and made him into a tomatomobile instead of the black sleek vehicle that he should have been in Y2K

[CB2001]

"I'm the Knight Industries Two Thousand. Not a tomato on wheels!" - KITT, "Knight Sting"

If you think about it, maybe if the pilot had become a show, they would have included a reason for KITT to go back to black somewhere mid-season (maybe the MBS for the KIFT body get melted away, so they have to end up using the original, black formula.

[HondaSiR]

No one can predict an accurate future, specially a far one (e.g. ten years). Take for example the KR2000 movie. Would it have been possible for it to include some facts about Star Trek ten years down the line? Like some future titles such as First Contact and Nemesis? Would it have been possible to accurately say how many ST movies would an original cast member make? One can only speculate.

The reason why Jaws 19 or a computer rendered Michael Jackson appeared in BTTF-2 is that they were well known entities at the time of the movie's production. It was intended to "amuse" the audience in a rather spoofy way. I don't think the writers really imagined that the Jaws franchise will last 19 takes...does anyone think so? A story about a giant shark can't really be believed that it can last that long.

And another thought...presuming that the writer of the movie has a very keen sense of the future. What if he really predicted that future blockbuster movies like The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and such would exist. And he even predicted the names of the actors involved (like Keanu Reeves, Orlando Bloom, etc.). Would it make sense in a movie that came out in 1990 or earlier? Would the audience be able to comprehend this setting? Would the audience understand a Michael Jackson future trial involving child molestation? My best guess is they won't, not by a very long shot. They will probably scratch their heads trying to figure out what the heck the story is getting in to.

[Bumfluff]

And aslo don't forget, according to BTTF Part II, we should have hovering cars by 2015. (And Jaws 19).

-Steve

Awwww, ya beat me to it dammit!

[CB2001]

And aslo don't forget, according to BTTF Part II, we should have hovering cars by 2015. (And Jaws 19).

-Steve

Awwww, ya beat me to it dammit!

"The shark STILL looks fake." - Marty.

[Lost Knight]

Don't forget about Quantum Leap... it made some rather bizarre predictions of the future. What year did the show start off at, as in what year did the story start? I know it was sometime in the mid-to-late 90's.

And aslo don't forget, according to BTTF Part II, we should have hovering cars by 2015. (And Jaws 19).

And also in KR2K, didn't Maddock say that James Doohan was in the first ten Star Trek Movies? Well they were a little off in the years it would take to make ten, and Scotty was only in the first seven.

Well, I am a Quantum Leap junkie and can tell you that the date of Sam's initial leap was around May 5, 1995. However, you're right that it made some bizarre predictions of the future (the series lasted from 1989-1993 and its present timeline took place from 1995-1999). Light-up earrings, blocky multi-colored consoles, etc. Pretty bizarre at least for a show which at the time's present took place 'the day after tomorrow.'

As for Back To the Future Part II, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale made plenty of inaccurate predictions. I took the time to listen to the audio commentary on the DVDs and learned (for at least one example here) that when Marty reads the newspaper in 2015, one article begins with "Queen Diana" (a prediction of what Princess Diana would have become). Jaws 19 is another crazy example, among others. As what was already explained, the safest route when making predictions is to make the future in any given story very distant, like The Matrix for example.

As for Knight Rider 2000, well, let's not even go there. We all know that movie was 99.9% off with its predictions. I don't hate the movie for that. I respect the ideas, yet dislike the movie if that makes any sense. I liked the guts that the producers had to predict a not-so-distant future, as well as the presumably logical continuity of our beloved main characters. So the producers were wrong in almost every way; at least they had the guts to try.

The reason I overall dislike the movie is that they missed the entire point of what Knight Rider was supposed to be: a fun action show about a high-tech supercar with a dramatic backdrop. KR2K was more like a dramatic and boring movie that tried desperately to be realistic (in terms of what producers thought the future would be). If the movie had better action, it would make the drama feel more important as opposed to boring. Jan Hammer produced good music, but I really feel that it didn't suit KR in the slightest; it needed more action-packed music.

CB2001- Knight Rider has introduced the idea of many forms of technology--more than we might think. The series has introduced the idea of the Internet, Micro-Jamming, spectrum analyzation, navigation systems, etc. Most of K.I.T.T.'s features are only just starting to become incorporated into every day vehicles. Cars now talk, can direct you where to go, and can automatically start. KR truly was ahead of its time. Oh, by the way, it's West Coast Customs (not East). However, those guys sometimes have devices superior to even KITT. I think that KITT would have always been a step ahead of most ordinary cars anyway (had the show lasted longer), or else he wouldn't be as special.

[NeoRanger]

Does it really matter? It was set in the future, like many other shows or movies. It cannot be considered "inaccurate timeline", because it's refering to something that back then hasn't happened yet. It was just a speculation, an imaginary story, whatever.

[CB2001]

Does it really matter? It was set in the future, like many other shows or movies. It cannot be considered "inaccurate timeline", because it's refering to something that back then hasn't happened yet. It was just a speculation, an imaginary story, whatever.

But it's still someone's idea on how the future will be, particularly for that fictional universe. So, it's not a direct "this is going to happen" prediction, just an idea for the universe.

[chrisebourg]

My only problem with Knight Rider 2000 was they took KITT and made him into a tomatomobile instead of the black sleek vehicle that he should have been in Y2K

Agreed

I could't stand watching KITT in this "high tech" car that could not do twice as much as what he could do in the T Top.

Furthermore, his voice did not sound the same, probably due to Mr being older.

[Paul]

The things I disliked about KR2K had nothing to do with the inaccuracies of the future predictions. On that I agree that it was simply a fantasy, an imagination of the future, based on the writer's own ideas. I don't have a problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is that it seemed to me as though it really wasn't trying to be Knight Rider in the tradition that I remember it, or as though it was just a standard sci fi action flick that inserted these established characters (Michael, Devon, KITT) just because it could. Let's face it, the basic story of KR2K could easily have been done without the Knight Rider franchise.

Plus, there was the absence of the "feel" of the original show. Sure, near the beginning, we meet Devon, then Michael, but I really didn't like Russ Maddock. When I discovered he was responsible for dismantling KITT I disliked him even more; after that no matter how often I rewatch the movie, I just don't like him.

Therein lies my next complaint. No KITT??? Was the writer mad? This is KNIGHT RIDER for heaven's sake! How can anyone who's knowledgeable about Knight Rider deliberately choose to exclude KITT? When I realised we absolutely wouldn't be seeing the familiar black Pontiac I almost turned off.

The whole "microchips in the head" stuff is just plain stupid, which brings me to my next point: at one point KITT says he may have to follow Shaun's wishes over Michael's "maybe for some time to come." WHAT?? KITT was specifically programmed by Wilton Knight to answer only to Michael. "You, specifically you," Deveon tells him at the beginning of the pilot. There is no way under normal circumstances KITT would diss Michael like that.

And finally: Maybe it was meant to be a transition, but as a true fan of the original Knight Rider, by the end of the movie, I was GLAD it hadn't been made into a series. In my opinion they'd destroyed every element that made Knight Rider what it is. If KR2K had indeed stayed on TV it seemed we'd have no Devon (dead; another unforgivable thing they did, as bad as destroying KITT), no Michael (he went back to fish in his burnout shack), no "real" KITT (that red...thing...he became is ugly, and as stated doesn't seem to do half as much as the original, even in season 1), and no mention of Bonnie, April, RC, or anything like that from the original.

What we'd have ended up with was Russ (gack) in Devon's role, Shawn in Michael's role, and a KITT who just wasn't KITT, with no Michael Knight. I ask, how can it be considered Knight Rider without Michael?

Okay, sorry, rant over. As you can probably tell, I really don't like that movie.

[NeoRanger]

Does it really matter? It was set in the future, like many other shows or movies. It cannot be considered "inaccurate timeline", because it's refering to something that back then hasn't happened yet. It was just a speculation, an imaginary story, whatever.

But it's still someone's idea on how the future will be, particularly for that fictional universe. So, it's not a direct "this is going to happen" prediction, just an idea for the universe.

Isn't that what I basically said?

[Fantine]

As much as I loathe KR2000, after much research and deep soul searching I have found one item that actually makes sense.

I have a perfectly rational explination as to why "Russ" sold Kitt off.

E-bay.


'Tis most addictive and often clouds one's better judgement.

[TurbomanKnight]

E-bay.


'Tis most addictive and often clouds one's better judgement.

Couldn't Agree with you more. Im on ebay on ever internet session. I can't stop. Somebody hit me with an auctioneer's gavel.