Original KR Pilot vs. New KR Pilot "A Fresh Perspective"

[March2875]

A few people in here mentioned that it would be cool to find some young children who had never seen the original Knight Rider to have them compare it to the new KR. Well folks I made that happen. One of my coworkers asked to borrow my VHS copy of the New KR pilot. She said she bet her kids would enjoy it. She said they loved it. I then asked her had they ever seen the original KR and she said no. So I loaned her the Original Pilot "Knight of the Phoenix." Her boys are ages 11 and 14. The 11 yr old said He preferred the New KR. He thought the new car was cooler and felt the new pilot had more action. The 14 yr old preferred the original Pilot and the original car. They both preferred the older car's hightech dash however. Both kids were making fun of the old music that was played in the original. Not the theme song but the Eagles and the other song I believe its a cover of the The Amazing Rythym Aces "Third Rate Romance."
She also said the first question out of their mouth's while watching the original Pilot was how come Charles Graiman isn't in it I mean He built the original KItt also didn't He? I thought that was kind of funny that children would ask that question so fast. Well you guys wanted to get a child's perspective here one is. What do you think?

[Knight Racer]

Those are funny reviews.I always wondered what people would think if they saw both.I had to lure 3 friends over with a pizza party to celebrate the new movie which I thought was going to be a pilot for a tv series that had gone into production.They stayed as long as they could but couldn't stay for the ending.I taped it in my bedroom vcr,bedroom DVR,living room DVR and I was mad that the bedroom vcr was set to ch 5,bedroom DVR was set to 1 hour of the movie,living room dvr got everything.I want to tape the commericals.

Anyway what I wanted to post was that after the movie I was going to play the original movie but even the last guy couldnt stay that long from 11-1.

[PHOENIXZERO]

Can't say I'm surprised because that's pretty much what I'd expect to see, especially the dash issue. That dash was one of the many things that brought in the "kid factor" all those pretty lights made it look busy and demanded attention. The boring pretty much stock dash is the one thing that needs the most work on the Mustang. It should be streamlined but not reduced to just a iPhone like interface.

[dulobast25]

This comparison is a bit loaded. For one, it appears that they watched the new one first, which is a no-no.
For one, the same caould be said for gones in 60 seconds, psycho and many remakes. There is no frame of reference. I've seen many argument over the terminator franchise. As far as special effects are concerned, to show a kid a show from 2008 and have him accept those items in that movie as fact snd then follow up witht he original is putting the cart before the horse. In one website, someone asked (Terminator) "why is arnold trying to kill sarah, I thought he was supposed to protect her" Which show a lack of understanding, even when reference of the 1st are shown in the 2nd. Same goes here. Many people on this site think, for instance thena the mustang is cool. Many think its cooler. What needs to be done is a separation between which car is cooler to have, which is cooler to have in a movie and what is more appropriate to knight rider. Those are questions are seemingly blurred. Also looking at a show with 20 years age factor with outdated clothing and music further biases anyone, especially a young kid.
Again, i have seen folks make fun of 80' music in the terminator, and start summising their opinion about the movie using that as a starting point.
My niece watched t3 first and thought it was a good movie, but she never saw the first 2. I showed her t1 and t2 in order and she was blown away, especially and the kyle character in t1, the brutality of t1 and the special effects and the t-1000 in t2. In the end, when it was time to put on t3 we watched 1/2 of it and she staited she preferred the first 2 movies. She was about 16 in 2003. On KR, my nephew who is 17 saw the clips of the new knight rider pilot online and clips of the orig pilot online and said the car was cool, but preferred the old version. Sometime in a few weeks we will sit down and watch both in totallity for a more conclusive answer.
Age is already a biasing factor in watching th original movie of just about any time, 90% negative, especially for 18 and younger crowd. especially if the "new hip" version is shown first.
The results are not surprising, but flawed. Of course, its possible all else being equal they would have still preferred the new one. I do, however find it interesting that the younger one liked the new one and the older kid liked the older one. The comment on the new pilot having more action would be contested by most people on any knight rider forum anywhere. Good effort, though. Wish we could go back in time to do the comparisons, It would be the only way to make it more fair.

[jup]

There are many factors that allow something old to be fresh to a newer public. In some respects, it's having all that older stuff available that makes the modern viewing world a treasure trove for the near infinite couch potato. Just because a style of creating television or movies has changed doesn't mean it's become bad.

I'm reminded of a somewhat recent viewing of the original Poltergeist movie. My basic thoughts were, outside of all the toys and vehicles that obviously anchored it to a time period, this movie could have been created with very little change in the modern day. A good idea, a good story plot, good actors and such are timeless. Avoid 'time period' anchers, as much as possible, and people from a hundred years in the future could enjoy the same things we did, as if they weren't a 'classic piece of work'.

As for the dash, I still consider the classic KITT to be unique. Here we are, 25+ years later and many of the feature notions presented back then are becoming our common reality. GPS vs. mapping. Military drone transports vs. Auto Pilot. Cel-Phones vs. visual communications. Night time enhancement viewing vs. sensors. Adaptive aerodynamics vs. SPM. The list goes on. Though, why we don't have digital dashes seems most likely because modern dashboard guage designs seemes to have been dominated by some singular corporation. Mechanical guages with circular visuals seem to be everywhere in a limited choice of lighting colors for the modern vehicle. If this monopoly to most makes had not occurred, we might be living in a world of digital displays, by now.

[BlackMagic84]

The original was a 100 times better.

Michael Long getting shot in the face and rescued by Wilton Knight to be the hand-picked guy to pilot the Knight Industries Two Thousand, and go seek revenge on Tonya and Comptron. Classic!

ANd the MUSIC was great too! They actually used real music by the real artists of the day that was popular!

KR 2008, had a plot that was far streched from the truth or reality. Too made up.

Charles Graiman (Supposedly invented KITT, but was never seen nor heard of in the origianl series).....that's weak.
same with his daughter.....and a bad actress at that.

And what was a bigger travesty to me what the fact that they made it out as if Micahel Knight abandoned his own child.

I call B.S. on that!

Michael Knight was a good guy, a real man and a hero.

If he had of knocked some gal up, he would have had the guts and responsibility to help raise and provide for the child, and not just "show up" after the kid is almost 30 years old and to the funeral of his mother.


By the way, Val Kilmer's voice sucks! He sounds like a "love line" operator, not a sophisticated one of a kind super computer/car. You can't touch William Daniels.


The new KITT (3000) sucks too!

Other than change color and repel a few bullets, it didn't do anything special, it couldn't even outrun that Ford Van in the moutains. No jumps either! LAME!