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Knight Rider uncut

Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:35 pm
by KnightAvenger77
Ive been wondering. people say the uncut are better than the sci-fi "edited" Whats the difference between these 2 versions?

Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 11:00 pm
by knightimmortal
Uh...for one....scenes that were always supposed to be there?

Scenes that in some cases connect the storyline actually are there.

I think you will notice that there have been plenty of topics about what is missing.

I think most people can figure out that uncut is better than cut.

Which would you rather have? A million dollars, or a bunch of bills cut in pieces?

KI

Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 11:08 pm
by Benjamin Knight
1 million dollars KI! ;) Thats a shame, I bet the shows on the station I watch it on are like double cut, they get shorter and shorter! :cry: And I miss good ones too! Oh well a little KR is heck of a lot better then no KR! What are some of the cut senes like, anything really good, or just stuff that was needed (I think I answered that one on my own lol)

Benjamin Knight
:spm:

Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2003 4:18 am
by Army_F_Body
What about those eps that were cut into 30 min, KI!!

Those had to have sucked really bad.

Were those for some kind of overseas distribution? I've never seen one over here, thank goodness.

Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2003 5:50 am
by JL
I remember reading that the 30-minute versions were intended for when KR was broadcast for the first time over in the UK, but they also ended up being broadcast in the US.

In my area (eastern Pennsylvania), not too long after KR went off the air, a local channel, WPHL-17 (independent back then; now it's part of the WB) started airing KR reruns... but the first time they ran through the first three seasons, it was the 30-minute versions. As you can guess, almost nothing made sense. It would be like trying to show a one hour version of Fellowship of the Rings or Harry Potter. When they got to the fourth season, they switched to hour-long (but slightly cut up) episodes, and continued that when they started the series over again after airing "Voo Doo Knight."

I'm surprised that SciFi hasn't done some sort of "Knight Rider Uncut" thing... their big thing when they first acquired the original Star Trek was that they'd be shown in their original 48-minute running lengths. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the fans, Spike TV (formerly TNN) has done the same with Star Trek: The Next Generation, but only on Friday nights.

I'm sure if enough fans suggested the idea to SciFi, they might be willing to run with it... of course, that's also if their agreement with Universal allows them access to the uncut versions of the episodes. It might not, in which case SciFi is doing the best that they can.

Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2003 9:16 am
by knightendo
in the uk it was shown in its entire state first of all (except most of s4 was missing, they only showed some episodes). then, later on after the show had finished they started to show daily showings of the 30-minute versions of the earlier series. these didn't last too long before being pulled back off the air again as everyone stopped watching when they realised that they were being cut down so badly!! (originally we thought each episode was being cut into two nights, that's how i remember taking it from the advertising.)

channel five (or five as it's now called) showed some at 7pm monday to friday a couple of years ago but pulled them too after a few weeks, nowhere near as popular as the same channel's full runs had been the year before - obviously!!

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 4:09 am
by Dave_McConnell
If anybody is looking for any episodes of Knight Rider uncut, e-mail me. I have every episode uncut.

Dave

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 10:31 am
by knightshade
JL wrote:

I'm surprised that SciFi hasn't done some sort of "Knight Rider Uncut" thing... their big thing when they first acquired the original Star Trek was that they'd be shown in their original 48-minute running lengths. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the fans, Spike TV (formerly TNN) has done the same with Star Trek: The Next Generation, but only on Friday nights.
::dinosaur rant coming::

Cable stations should not be cutting shows anyway. The whole reason you had to pay for cable in the early days was that they didn't have commercials - cable would make money on subscriptions, not ads. The shows were completely uncut. Or at least on a lot of channels. Okay, so obviously that business model didn't work out for them and commercials became standard a long time ago. But why would they have to cut the shows to sneak in *more* commericals than regular, free, broadcast TV? They get commercial money *and* subscription money. To act like it's a big gift to show episodes uncut is ridiculous. :roll:

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 12:03 pm
by ColeGrad01
All this talk about episodes being cut makes me feel like I've missed things that are important. Have I missed anything that would help have the show make more sense?

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 12:07 pm
by Michael Pajaro
The cable TV model is more complicated than that.

One of the reasons why new cable channels don't have commercials at first is that they need to build up an audience first, to demonstrate to the advertisers the value of the channel. It can take as much as 5-10 YEARS before some channels become profitable, assuming they can even survive that long.

I don't know the numbers, but it's something like only 10% of TV shows actually make money for TV networks. They lose money on 90% of their programming, and are gambling to get those break-out hits to make up for all the bombs. Syndication is where the money is, and even with your rising cable fees it's still not enough to break even for many if not most shows.

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 4:26 pm
by knightshade
Michael Pajaro wrote:The cable TV model is more complicated than that.
I had a feeling you were going to rain on my little rant with some reality. :wink: But it's still annoying that in syndication they feel it's fine to cut out bits of the show.

And ColeGrad, it seemed that usually, they didn't cut out anything too critical to the plot. But there are some cases where they cut out things that made other plot points confusing (the bit about KARR's silver paint job is a good example). Mostly I think they ended up cutting out the cute little bits of character interaction.

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 4:43 pm
by ColeGrad01
I haven't seen KITT VS KARR yet, so I wouldn't know exactly what you mean by KARR's paint job being redone. I know he looks different when he is brought back. But I don't exactly know how the story goes. You have to actually see the episode to understand.

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 5:14 pm
by Michael Pajaro
knightshade wrote:I had a feeling you were going to rain on my little rant with some reality. :wink: But it's still annoying that in syndication they feel it's fine to cut out bits of the show.
I'm a television systems engineer, and those cable companies have put food on my table for many years now. The more money they have, the more money they can pay me to build new facilities, so I want them to have as much money as they can get!

But yes, I share your frustration with all the commercials.

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 7:23 pm
by The Real Michael Knight
Aw man, so Sci-Fi cuts their episodes? That blows. I recently aquired every episode but they're Sci-Fi channel records (and the quality is only great to fair on some eps). So that means what, a good six minutes of the show were cut? Aw man. Oh well, hopefully one day we'll get our DVD's.

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 9:34 pm
by knightimmortal
6 to 8 minutes. And yeah, Sci-Fi, USA, WWOR, WGN, all of them have been chopped up episodes.

KI

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 9:52 pm
by The Real Michael Knight
I hear NBC was the only network that didn't. (well when they originally aired of course)

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 10:02 pm
by Benjamin Knight
Thats a shame! Did you miss anything cool, or important?

Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2003 10:40 pm
by ColeGrad01
They are fine they way I see them. But if you had to watch it when it was originally on to see deleted scenes, what about us who were either too young to remember (like me- I don't remember any actual episodes) or not even alive?

Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2003 12:51 am
by Dave_McConnell
There is one scene they cut out of the one where Michael works along with his ex-partner when he was Michael Long which was really cool. The very end of the episode when watching it in reruns is the guy giving Michael the police badge and that's the end. In the uncut version it keeps going and KITT does a turbo boost right through a football goal. Pretty cool. Usually there aren't really important scenes, just fun bits like the guy who takes KARR (in KITT Vs. KARR), when he first stops at the shop he checks out the hotties walking by. That's cut in reruns.

Richie Levine's cool site has nice reviews of the cut scenes. I don't have the address anymore.

Dave

Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2003 11:13 am
by knightdogg
I remember watching those 30 minute Knight Rider episodes on WWOR Channel 9 in NYC in the early 90s which would come on if the Mets game on Sundays ended early or there was a rain delay. Those episodes were butchered.