Knight Rider was cancelled?

[DevonStyles]

The major thing they did wrong was change the car....... I know we can't expect to see a 27 year old trans am chasin down bad guys but that's not the point.

Kitt has reached super car status..... Just like the general lee and Herbie so to speak.

When you change something like that it affects people's fondest memories and kids and everthing else.

When months ago you told the casual viewer that they was bringing knight rider back the first thing out of 9 outta 10 people's mouth was is it a trans am?.... Nope it's a mustang..... I heard responses like Ohhh that's gay and it should be a trans am etc.....

Heck check various message boards on the net where people talk about shows etc.... One of the first things you will read about is people not liking the fact that Kitt is a mustang.

It's like changin the general lee to a honda civic...... People are not going to like it.

Then of course the lack luster writing and action has not helped the show either.
The transformations KILLED the show....

[WIBoomer1]

Back in 82, there was no import option. This was a US show, and a US car KITT was going to be. Glen A Lawson has said that he liked the lines of the new 82 TA, and really wanted that to be the car. Pontiac wanted the promotion, and a deal was struck. It wasn't until people wanted a KITT version they could by at the dealers that the relationship seemed to sour.

Flash forward to 08, and what car really was the producer's supposed to use. KI3T is supposed to be the most technically advanced automobile in the world. Is there any currently produced American automobile that could match that description? The Corvette springs to mind, but would GM want to have a Corvette portraying KI3T? i don't know, but it seems that they passed. Was GM asked first? Same answer. Ford wanted to have the Mustang (as well as the other vehicles in their lineup, thank you transformation mode!) as KI3T. My thought is that Chrysler was in no shape to have the Challenger be KI3T.

Do you make KI3T as custom car? This means more money needed to create and maintain a fleet of vehicles.
Ford's use makes the most sense. I have no problem with KI3T being a Mustang. No offense to any other vehicles, but it would need to be American. Would a Z 370 be a good KI3T? Because we have transitioned from a Sports Car world to a SUV world, there's not many cars that could fit the bill, that would be cost prohibitive to be used on a weekly basis.

[knightprobe89]

I think the problem is that the intentions were not good. Correct me if I am wrong but from what I remember NBCU's original motivation for making the pilot was that they heard Larson was pushing for a movie and wanted him to come aboard with them and make a TV show, he refused and the rest is history.

They made the show to "stick it to him", any project conceived under such a negative atmosphere is bound to fail. As usual the fans suffer the most and are left thinking "what if".

actually from what i remember universal wanted larson to bring his feature film project to them, since larson was already with the weinstein company he refused to bring the feature film to universal, and since universal owns the rights to the tv show they threatened larson with making a tv pilot movie and series to compete and mess things up with his feature film, maybe thats why nbc universal didn't care too much how the pilot and tv series turned out, maybe thats why we got an inferior product, maybe it was all done to ruin the knight rider name and ruin the reputation of the feature film.

[1982]

actually from what i remember universal wanted larson to bring his feature film project to them, since larson was already with the weinstein company he refused to bring the feature film to universal, and since universal owns the rights to the tv show they threatened larson with making a tv pilot movie and series to compete and mess things up with his feature film, maybe thats why nbc universal didn't care too much how the pilot and tv series turned out, maybe thats why we got an inferior product, maybe it was all done to ruin the knight rider name and ruin the reputation of the feature film.

Kind of hard for Larson to go to Universal after Weinstein had already purchased the rights for the movie.

The pilot didn't need to be rushed into production as it was. Interesting how it just happened to air a month before the arrival of the Shelby GT500KR. Or did Ford plan it that way to get exposure?



If the show gets cancelled, it could mean the death of the movie. With the present, and the past KR track record since the original, financial backing could be a big problem. If it can't make it where one can watch it for free, what are the chances where one has to pay. Then there is the problem of the Weinsteins themselves. Guess everyone will have to wait until after the end of the season for Larson's promised announcement about the movie at the Knight Festival.

[Mr.Marcus]

The major thing they did wrong was change the car....... I know we can't expect to see a 27 year old trans am chasin down bad guys but that's not the point.

Kitt has reached super car status..... Just like the general lee and Herbie so to speak.

When you change something like that it affects people's fondest memories and kids and everthing else.

When months ago you told the casual viewer that they was bringing knight rider back the first thing out of 9 outta 10 people's mouth was is it a trans am?.... Nope it's a mustang..... I heard responses like Ohhh that's gay and it should be a trans am etc.....

Heck check various message boards on the net where people talk about shows etc.... One of the first things you will read about is people not liking the fact that Kitt is a mustang.

It's like changin the general lee to a honda civic...... People are not going to like it.

Then of course the lack luster writing and action has not helped the show either.
The transformations KILLED the show....

The car had to change. KITT by definition is the car of the future. Bringing back the 82 Trans Am as the star of the show would have been dated and silly since its an iconic 1980s vehicle with 80s styling cues. What they should have done is spent a lot more time showing the transition from the Trans Am to the Mustang. From the old KITT to the new KITT. People will be a lot more accepting of change when you give them a plausible reason for doing it. For instance, the Tumbler looks nothing like a sleek Batmobile we've all identified as Batman's ride. But Nolan showed us that a war on crime requires a functional vehicle. Now people identify the Tumbler as the Batmobile. Its a fixed idea in people's minds.

The passing reference in the 2 hour movie wasn't going to do it. They should have spent at least a 2 hour episode focused solely on passing the torch. The central plot of the episode being the transition from the old KITT to the new KITT. The possibilities of such a story are limitless. That would have been something interesting to watch.

[PunkMaister]

The pilot didn't need to be rushed into production as it was. Interesting how it just happened to air a month before the arrival of the Shelby GT500KR. Or did Ford plan it that way to get exposure?

If the show gets cancelled, it could mean the death of the movie. With the present, and the past KR track record since the original, financial backing could be a big problem. If it can't make it where one can watch it for free, what are the chances where one has to pay. Then there is the problem of the Weinsteins themselves. Guess everyone will have to wait until after the end of the season for Larson's promised announcement about the movie at the Knight Festival.

Precisely it basically means the absolute end of the K.R franchise as a viable one, from then on it will just be another dead franchise forever and ever, only living in fanclubs the end...

[Shapeshifter]

I sincerely hope that this is NOT the end of the franchise. We'll have to wait and see. I Do know that there are some really good KR episodes coming up, much more like the original series in tone, that I'm sure everyone here will enjoy. So, hold on to that for now.

As far as all this Glen Larson-NBC intrigue; I go with that saying "The simplest answer is usually the correct one". NBC wanted to bring back Knight Rider. It had nothing to do with anything that Glen Larson was up to. You're not going to sink $50 million into a project to get back at some guy, especially in these troubled economic times. That just doesn't make sense.

[PunkMaister]

I sincerely hope that this is NOT the end of the franchise. We'll have to wait and see. I Do know that there are some really good KR episodes coming up, much more like the original series in tone, that I'm sure everyone here will enjoy. So, hold on to that for now.

I hope is not the end either but we know that fit this tanks it will be just that!

As far as all this Glen Larson-NBC intrigue; I go with that saying "The simplest answer is usually the correct one". NBC wanted to bring back Knight Rider. It had nothing to do with anything that Glen Larson was up to. You're not going to sink $50 million into a project to get back at some guy, especially in these troubled economic times. That just doesn't make sense.

Precisely, they did want to see if they could bring the franchise back that's all...

[blowersho]

So they wanted to bring it back but in a half ass, lame, boring. incoherent sort of way, interesting.

[Shapeshifter]

So they wanted to bring it back but in a half ass, lame, boring. incoherent sort of way, interesting.

NO ONE sets out to make a bad show. EVERYONE involved had good intentions. But, you get network, studio and producers involved, all of whom have different visions of what the show should be, and you can end up with a mess. GST had a clear vision, but by the time the 'suits' threw in their 2 cents, it ended up a compromise that pleased no one. And, they may have had a point. Maybe GST was not the right person for the job. We may never know.

i think after a while, it just became a gauntlet the producers had to run every week, It was no longer about the show, just about getting producers, studio, network, and money guys to agree. It became about everything but making a good show.

[Lexicon]

So they wanted to bring it back but in a half ass, lame, boring. incoherent sort of way, interesting.

NBC and parent company Universal wanted a BSG-like success (as GST puts it) but the thing of it is that Sci-Fi could get away with a lot of the dramatic stuff that Knight Rider simply cannot do under any circumstances because BSG is on a cable network and not a broadcast one. Add to the fact that GST wanted to reinvent Knight Rider in his own Fast and Furious way but keep the mythology consistent with the premise of the original and you have a recipe for Mystery Meat Surprise. I think David Andron would have done a better job with the concept and that clearly shows in the aspects of the show he has been involved in but that is just my own opinion.

[Night Rider]

I just hope Knight Rider doesn´t canceled, I like it.
But, I know people who don´t like this series because it isn´t like original Knight Rider.
If this is canceled, we won´t see the returns of KARR (or Goliath)

[Lost Knight]

I sincerely hope that this is NOT the end of the franchise. We'll have to wait and see. I Do know that there are some really good KR episodes coming up, much more like the original series in tone, that I'm sure everyone here will enjoy. So, hold on to that for now.

As far as all this Glen Larson-NBC intrigue; I go with that saying "The simplest answer is usually the correct one". NBC wanted to bring back Knight Rider. It had nothing to do with anything that Glen Larson was up to. You're not going to sink $50 million into a project to get back at some guy, especially in these troubled economic times. That just doesn't make sense.

Whether the new series gets canceled after the season ends or not, I do not believe it will be the end of the franchise. It's possible for anything to bounce back. Take the Batman movie franchise, for example. It began promisingly enough in 1989 and fell apart by the time Batman & Robin came out in 1997. It was such a terrible and cheesy film and to this day continues to get bashed to no end, and it very well could have killed the franchise. But then came Batman Begins and the franchise regained respect once more. I believe the same thing can happen with the Knight Rider feature film.

I believe it's only a matter of timing. Right now the series does not have good word-of-mouth from those who are actually paying attention to it. But if a movie later comes out done by different people and with a different tone, the franchise can very well have a chance. But like I said, I think timing is everything. If we get a movie too soon, people may be too weary of the franchise and not want to give it a chance. It would be a different situation than resurrecting an '80s franchise that had no current sequel series out and has been dormant since, though, like Transformers.

But then you also have examples of rebooted franchises like Ang Lee's Hulk and Louis Letirriere's (spelling?) The Incredible Hulk. It was only a matter of 5 years and to a lot of people it felt way too soon to resurrect. Some even said (including me) that they never should have even bothered trying to reboot it and that it would be terrible. Well, it came out only 5 years later and made money at the box office and actually turned out to be a really fun action-packed movie. So an example like this gives me hope also that we not only have a chance that the franchise will continue, but that we won't have to wait 20+ years again for it to happen. It all depends on the marketing, promotion and tone. I'd love to see KR return as a movie with a darker tone à la Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

[Skav]

[quote="Lost Knight"]Whether the new series gets canceled after the season ends or not, I do not believe it will be the end of the franchise. It's possible for anything to bounce back. Take the Batman movie franchise, for example. It began promisingly enough in 1989 and fell apart by the time Batman & Robin came out in 1997. It was such a terrible and cheesy film and to this day continues to get bashed to no end, and it very well could have killed the franchise. But then came Batman Begins and the franchise regained respect once more. I believe the same thing can happen with the Knight Rider feature film.[quote]


The difference is that all previous attempts at reviving KR have failed! Purely and simply to be honest. Plus the character of Batman is much more legendary and overall, BIGGER than KR which just started off as a tv show.

It's like comparing apples with oranges. Plus a Batman film will fit into any era. KR, in this day and age, does not fit so easily but that really depends if it has a really good story behind it to suit the the day and age we are in now.

The two parter that was on a couple of weeks ago was perfect for KR for today's audience. It was gritty and hard edged.

[Lost Knight]

The difference is that all previous attempts at reviving KR have failed! Purely and simply to be honest. Plus the character of Batman is much more legendary and overall, BIGGER than KR which just started off as a tv show.

It's true that Knight Rider has a lot more strikes against it than Batman. In this case it would be television failures as opposed to feature film failures and I wonder if that would make a difference in terms of trying to bounce back.

But we need to understand why the previous 3 attempts failed. Knight Rider 2000 originally had an entirely different script that got scrapped and replaced at the last minute. The result was a movie that had decent character continuity but completely missed the point with just about every other aspect of the franchise. It didn't help that it predicted a bizarre science fiction future with predictions that turned out to be way off.

Then there was Team Knight Rider which seems to have had the same problems the current series has, without having a clear direction and mediocre or bad scripts. It also strayed away from the "one man, one car" formula and borrowed more from Voltron in terms of multiple vehicles merging to become one.

And then there's Knight Rider 2010. It had a talking car and the name Knight Rider and that's about it. No wonder this one tanked.

It's like comparing apples with oranges. Plus a Batman film will fit into any era. KR, in this day and age, does not fit so easily but that really depends if it has a really good story behind it to suit the the day and age we are in now.

It depends on if it has a good story and the technological "wow factor" the car has. There's a lot of room for improvement in that department right now. KR always had to keep K.I.T.T. a step ahead from current technology catching up too fast. It would be the same situation now, only technology is moving even quicker and audiences are more jaded where it's harder than ever to impress people and show them things they haven't seen before.

Frankly, this isn't that damn hard of a concept to get right. But the wrong creative people have continually gotten involved, not to mention various producers and network executives all having different visions. Glen Larson at least understands his characters and what the franchise is supposed to be, so once the final script gets approved (if it ever does), that hopefully will be enough to make a decent film that finally gets it right.

[Wilton KnightIII]

I hope it won't be cancelled because it has so much potintial. of surpassing the 80's version. Even though I enjoyed the 80's version with the Hoff and Daniels'

[PunkMaister]

Whether the new series gets canceled after the season ends or not, I do not believe it will be the end of the franchise. It's possible for anything to bounce back. Take the Batman movie franchise, for example. It began promisingly enough in 1989 and fell apart by the time Batman & Robin came out in 1997. It was such a terrible and cheesy film and to this day continues to get bashed to no end, and it very well could have killed the franchise. But then came Batman Begins and the franchise regained respect once more. I believe the same thing can happen with the Knight Rider feature film.

I believe it's only a matter of timing. Right now the series does not have good word-of-mouth from those who are actually paying attention to it. But if a movie later comes out done by different people and with a different tone, the franchise can very well have a chance. But like I said, I think timing is everything. If we get a movie too soon, people may be too weary of the franchise and not want to give it a chance. It would be a different situation than resurrecting an '80s franchise that had no current sequel series out and has been dormant since, though, like Transformers.

But then you also have examples of rebooted franchises like Ang Lee's Hulk and Louis Letirriere's (spelling?) The Incredible Hulk. It was only a matter of 5 years and to a lot of people it felt way too soon to resurrect. Some even said (including me) that they never should have even bothered trying to reboot it and that it would be terrible. Well, it came out only 5 years later and made money at the box office and actually turned out to be a really fun action-packed movie. So an example like this gives me hope also that we not only have a chance that the franchise will continue, but that we won't have to wait 20+ years again for it to happen. It all depends on the marketing, promotion and tone. I'd love to see KR return as a movie with a darker tone à la Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

The comparison with Batman which is franchise that spans comic books, movies and both animated and live action TV shows not to mention is decades older is nonsense... There is no doubt that the K,R franchise won't experience any kind of a rebound from the current show's cancellation if it does occur within our lifetimes and probably a whole lot longer...

[Mr.Marcus]

I sincerely hope that this is NOT the end of the franchise. We'll have to wait and see. I Do know that there are some really good KR episodes coming up, much more like the original series in tone, that I'm sure everyone here will enjoy. So, hold on to that for now.

As far as all this Glen Larson-NBC intrigue; I go with that saying "The simplest answer is usually the correct one". NBC wanted to bring back Knight Rider. It had nothing to do with anything that Glen Larson was up to. You're not going to sink $50 million into a project to get back at some guy, especially in these troubled economic times. That just doesn't make sense.

Whether the new series gets canceled after the season ends or not, I do not believe it will be the end of the franchise. It's possible for anything to bounce back. Take the Batman movie franchise, for example. It began promisingly enough in 1989 and fell apart by the time Batman & Robin came out in 1997. It was such a terrible and cheesy film and to this day continues to get bashed to no end, and it very well could have killed the franchise. But then came Batman Begins and the franchise regained respect once more. I believe the same thing can happen with the Knight Rider feature film.

I believe it's only a matter of timing. Right now the series does not have good word-of-mouth from those who are actually paying attention to it. But if a movie later comes out done by different people and with a different tone, the franchise can very well have a chance. But like I said, I think timing is everything. If we get a movie too soon, people may be too weary of the franchise and not want to give it a chance. It would be a different situation than resurrecting an '80s franchise that had no current sequel series out and has been dormant since, though, like Transformers.

But then you also have examples of rebooted franchises like Ang Lee's Hulk and Louis Letirriere's (spelling?) The Incredible Hulk. It was only a matter of 5 years and to a lot of people it felt way too soon to resurrect. Some even said (including me) that they never should have even bothered trying to reboot it and that it would be terrible. Well, it came out only 5 years later and made money at the box office and actually turned out to be a really fun action-packed movie. So an example like this gives me hope also that we not only have a chance that the franchise will continue, but that we won't have to wait 20+ years again for it to happen. It all depends on the marketing, promotion and tone. I'd love to see KR return as a movie with a darker tone à la Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Its a great comparison but the thing is the studios recognized the profitability in the Batman franchise and it had run its course with 97's Batman & Robin which was the recipe for Chris Nolan to come in and reinterpret it. I don't think NBC recognizes the value in KR. The more I see that they can't get it correct, the more I'm starting to believe that NBC just pimped out the KR property so they could strike a lucrative deal with Ford. Its clear to me that they did not give a crap about the "one man can make a difference" principle or good story telling or anything worthwhile. Rather, they loaded it up with glitz and fed off Transformers and created some sort of mystery meat then slapped on Knight Rider in an attempt to make it Kosher. Sadly, many KR "fans" fell for it. They are feasting on a hotdog made out of pig snouts, lips, and ears believing it to be Filet Mignon b/c its all the scraps they are getting. Thankfully, the ratings aren't there to sustain this series.

[NeoRanger]

Sadly, many KR "fans" fell for it.

Condescending much?

Thankfully, the ratings aren't there to sustain this series.

Let me introduce a little friend of mine:

[Kevin Knight]

I have to agree with

audiences are more jaded where it's harder than ever to impress people and show them things they haven't seen before.

People went crazy for velcro, stickers, and flourescent clothes in the 80's. What amenities do you feel could be added to your cars to help your everyday life aside from a car that drives by itself? (giving you the option to eat a breakfast, or read the paper, and make grocery lists while still enroute) Other than the ability to contact and control things outside the car KITT didn't need to be updated. They had already obtained ridiculous speeds, on water, and jumping over obstacles. The only terrain left was the air. But set in the current world it would be unbelievable with air-traffic, and the FAA not allowing that type of transport above certain heights without a registere flight plan. Plus it wouldn't really add to a storyline. I guess the only option would have been a new body for K.I.T.T. and left him voiced by Daniels. We're still left wondering why the original K.I.T.T. microprocessor was scrapped, destroyed, etc? cause if that did not happen what was the point of the 3000 personality? They couldn't have just upgraded the K.I.T.T. program for new hardware? So yes I agree filling us in on the 25 years is necessary. I agree Larson knows his characters. Do the directors? I'm just so damn confused by KR2008.

KK