Trust Doesn't Rust Transam Question

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Trust Doesn't Rust Transam Question

Post by Allen » Thu Nov 20, 2003 10:51 am

Trust Doesn't Rust showed recently on sci-fi. I've always enjoyed that one, seeing KARR, and the two goobers who steal him, and how KITT reacts to seeing the prototype, etc.

Devon explains that KARR was the prototype model that Wilton Knight had created, and put into service and de-activated about six months before Michael was brought to the Foundation.

KR started in 1982 when the Transam was still new. Michael Long owned a 1982 Transam as a police officer. Six months before we meet Michael Long, Wilton Knight builds KARR into a 1982 Transam.

So, here's my question. Was it supposed to be "coincidence" that the Foundation built KARR into a 1982 Transam at the same time that police officer Michael Long bought his Transam? What if Michael Long was driving a 1982 LeCar? Or an old Gremlin? Would the Foundation have provided him a Transam?

Some would call this coincidence "verisimillitude:" we are asked to stretch our believability a bit far, that the Foundation was "keeping an eye on" a police officer for its new agent, who just happened to be driving the same car that they had already developed as a prototype.

Just my thoughts. I have spent a week puzzling this out, and thought I would see what y'all thought.

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Post by stevem » Thu Nov 20, 2003 11:42 am

When I got my first car it was a Pontiac Sunbird. My cousin got his car about a week later. He called me excited about getting a car and wanted to meet up to show it to me. When we got together at our grandma's house we were surprised to see that we both had the same kind of car. Coincidences do happen. It would be crazy to assume that my cousin was spying on me to see what kind of car I got so that he could get the same thing. It was just coincidence just like the coincidence that Micheal Long had a Trans Am and Knight Industries just happened to choose that model to make KITT and KARR.

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Post by stevem » Thu Nov 20, 2003 11:44 am

I just noticed another coincidence. The cousin that I was talking about is named Allen! :D

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Post by Michael Pajaro » Thu Nov 20, 2003 12:49 pm

We had a big debate on this 2 weeks ago, but you may have missed it since it was contained in a thread about michael long's doctor:

http://www.knightrideronline.com/phpbb/ ... 70&start=0

Basically, when looking at the overall series the existence of KARR overwrites any implications in the pilot that KITT was Michael Long's car. We can retroactively say that it's a coincidence that they both are Trans Ams, but when the pilot was written I don't believe it was meant to be a coincidence.
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Post by Allen » Thu Nov 20, 2003 12:54 pm

I agree that coincidences happen. Amazing coincidences happen in real life that are hard to believe, but nevertheless they do happen.

And I had another thought along this same topic; something that doesn't quite fit into the timeline.

In the episode, Knight of the Drones (with the boombox that turns into robots, you know that one), Devon tells Michael about an agent that worked for the Foundation before they found Michael, his name was Ken Franklyn (please see http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/007 ... 301-10.htm for more information). Ken Franklyn had been tailing C.J. Jackson, and Jackson killed Franklyn. Devon then tells Michael:

We all took the tragic loss very hard...but Wilton Knight hardest of all. He closed the Foundation, put the entire F.L.A.G. Project on hold, and didn't reactivate it until we found you.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, the Foundation was creating KARR, which was six months before they found Michael. I wonder about this "Ken Franklyn." Did he get to drive a car like KITT? Did he drive KARR? I can only imagine that Franklyn drove KARR, unless the Foundation didn't use a high-tech car for its agent.

We can only speculate. Thoughts?

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Post by JL » Thu Nov 20, 2003 1:12 pm

Maybe after the incident with Ken Franklyn, they decided that they'd develop KARR to be there to protect the field operative. :?:

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Post by Allen » Thu Nov 20, 2003 1:13 pm

Mike,
Thanks for the link. I missed that thread, and so I read through all the posts and saw that the topic was debated and debated already. I'm two weeks behind! Sigh.

Well, if anyone wants to comment here, that'd be great.

allen

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Post by Michael Pajaro » Thu Nov 20, 2003 1:19 pm

It can be dangerous bringing real-life logic into some of the KR scripts, but...

The existence of KARR was a complete shock to Michael and KITT. If the Foundation already had another car/driver team, I think Michael would have heard at least something about it. (Unless there was some sort of big cover-up which Devon would be a part of).

Also, suppose Ken did drive KARR. Did Wilton tell him something along the lines of "One man can make a difference, Ken, and you are going to be that man"? Then oops! Ken gets killed and it's time to bring in the next living representation of Wilton's legacy. I think it would diminish the bond between Wilton and Michael if Michael was FLAG's second driver, not the first.

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Post by knightimmortal » Thu Nov 20, 2003 2:01 pm

I have to disagree, Mike.

If the Foundation already had another car/driver team, I think Michael would have heard at least something about it. (Unless there was some sort of big cover-up which Devon would be a part of).

They had no problem hiding the other car, so why would they have had no problem hiding the other driver? The Foundation rather obviously kept it's past from Michael seeing as he didn't even find out about C.J. Jackson or Ken Franklyn until much later. It was REAL obvious that they kept Michael on a need to know basis.

Also, suppose Ken did drive KARR. Did Wilton tell him something along the lines of "One man can make a difference, Ken, and you are going to be that man"? Then oops! Ken gets killed and it's time to bring in the next living representation of Wilton's legacy. I think it would diminish the bond between Wilton and Michael if Michael was FLAG's second driver, not the first.

Why not bring in the next one? When you have a dream, and a high budgeted one at that, do you honestly believe that Wilton wouldn't have a back-up contingency? Are you saying that Wilton, a man who has the resources to build the world's utmost supercar, and to recreate a man's face in the image of his choice wouldn't have a backup, especially in such a dangerous job? And what bond are you talking about? Wilton died before there was any type of bond established. Any bond that existed came from a remote finding, but there was no bond there except for the ones that get created by self-emotions. The only bond was the provisions that Wilton left behind for Michael to operate. He did what had to be done to save Michael's life for the purpose that he needed.

With the introduction of Ken Franklyn into the equation, there was supposed to be a definite hint that Michael was not the first, and that Wilton wasn't such a blind old fool, as to not have his rear covered.

There is a very high possibility that Ken Franklyn was KARR's driver. If you go through a chain of logic here, they never completely explained why they were to dismantle KARR. You don't just dismantle something because of its programming unless something drastic happened.

Take a moment here, to follow a chain of command logic. KARR has a need to have humans at the controls, otherwise, he would have been out of that museum or that sand bank a long time before, specifically if he was based solely on self- preservation. It seems to be in tune with Wilton's thinking of one man can make a difference, not one car can make a difference.

Pair him up with Ken Franklyn, the first guinea pig in this bold new experiment of one man, one car. KARR is unable to keep Ken alive, most potentially due to a conflicting order within his programming, Ken dies. KARR goes off the deep end, due to the conflicting orders, and Wilton is faced with dismantling him rather than reprogramming, because some things are extremely difficult to reprogram. They could have just changed his primary programming to exclude self-preservation and include partner preservation, but something so grand had to have happened as to have not made that a possibility, and to present the rather grave and extreme possibility that KARR would have to be dismantled.

As for why KARR was in the form of a 1982 Pontiac Trans-Am? Wilton was a visionary, maybe he came up with the concept before Pontiac did. Maybe he got his hands on the preliminary designs for the future changes in the body, since he wanted the car of the future.

KI

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Post by ColeGrad01 » Thu Nov 20, 2003 2:37 pm

I don't have anything to say about the topic for the thread, but seeing stuff mentioned in replies has made me wonder some things. I always wanted to know something about Ken Franklyn. I remember Devon telling Michael how he had all his qualifications except that he was not originally a police officer.

So what was Ken Franklyn? Was he like a military hero or a former CIA/FBI agent? How exactly did they get him? Did he join the Foundation or was he involuntarily recruited like Michael? Also, would he have gotten to wear his own face? I know they only did that to Michael cause of the damage from the shot. But to keep their organization a secret from society, do all agents get new faces so anyone who once knew them could not link them to the agency?

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Post by knightimmortal » Thu Nov 20, 2003 2:39 pm

None of those questions were ever answered in the show.

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Post by Knicks4973 » Thu Nov 20, 2003 10:39 pm

Ki's answer about Ken Franklyn and KARR, in my opinion, is excellent!

What she said makes a lot of sense. It gives a proper timeline on life before Michael and KITT.

I do have one issue, though, and that is with KARR himself. KARR, in TDR, seemed very primitive, almost too primitive for someone to drive during missions. KARR didn't know what the sirens at the burger joint were, and didn't know much about humans, making me believe he wasn't activated for all too long. Plus Devon wasn't so concerned about KARR like he was in KvK, when he returned. To me, it would seem foolish to send out anyone with a primitive KARR. Then again, maybe KARR was activated for only a short time because he let Ken Franklyn get killed? Though if KARR got someone killed or let them get killed, wouldn't have Devon been more concerned then he was?

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Post by knightimmortal » Thu Nov 20, 2003 11:13 pm

Devon was pretty concerned, but he was more overtaken by shock more than anything, as far as he had known, KARR was already dismantled. It's pretty hard to get past the shock in that case. :)

And thanks for the compliment about the Ken Franklyn explanation. :)

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Post by Michael Pajaro » Fri Nov 21, 2003 12:44 am

We may be back to another rewriting of history paradox here...

I cannot believe that at the time Trust Doesn't Rust was written, there was a back-story in mind about another FLAG agent fighting crime with a supercar. Michael was upset that he hadn't been told about KARR. Since Devon seemed willing to fill him in on the details at that point, I can't imagine Devon failing to mention that there was another "chosen one" before Michael.

I don't think Devon was ever trying to hide the existence of KARR from Michael, it was simply a non-issue to him. KARR was just a failed prototype. There probably would have been test vehicles even before KARR. If KARR had really been dismantled, I doubt Michael would care at all that KITT'S programming had an earlier, non-viable prototype.

I admit it's hard to get past the line about "we had another man in your position". But that doesn't mean Ken was given the keys to KARR. Maybe the original plan was that Ken was supposed to be the FLAG driver, and he not been killed he would have eventually becomes KITT driver. Who knows.

The other issue I have is one of writing style: Knight Rider wasn't a complicated series, but I don't think the writers were dummies either. If Ken drove KARR, why not say so? Even then they had to have known that KARR was one of their best villians, so name-dropping would have been very cool.

I'm usually pretty conservative when it comes to speculating about canon. For me, there is not enough material there to suggest that Ken was probably or likely KARR's driver. It's possible.
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Post by knightimmortal » Fri Nov 21, 2003 12:56 am

*sigh, bangs head against wall*

Ok, Mike, I have a problem with THIS.

We are trying to place the pieces together, as we are in all these scenarios, to be able to give KR some continuity, could you just for once not go with your dictation of how the writers did not have another person in mind for Michael's position when Trust Doesn't Rust came into fruition. (And well, that is your estimation, maybe they did.) Would you stop treating KR like it was a kid's show in which you think it was all fun and no play for those who are trying to at least put some connecting the dots together? It is things like this which serious tick people off, ok? You don't know what the writers had in mind, we are speculating, so stop peeing on the speculation, please? Please don't make statements of what the writers had in mind, or what the writers did, or what they didn't do. For all you know, they didn't drop KARR's name for the pure fact that would have opened the door for more KARR visitation. You aren't a writer, so you don't know how or what they were coming up with. For all you know, maybe they were trying to touch on Franklyn as a way to connect the dots and put together some continuity, after all, they actually took the time out to explain where Bonnie had gone.

So, please, just for some creative sanity, can it not for once be a dictation of what you think the writers had in mind, please? I am not trying to make you a bad guy or anything, I just would like for once to not have you walk in and poo-pah all and any existing ideas for continuity, unless there is some known memo that all discussion on this board is moot, and we are just here to throw out dumb commentary, and listen to your brand of discussion. At which point, it's my bad, and I am sorry. But please, don't tell us what the writers were thinking, you honestly don't know what their storyboards ever looked like, and we here are just trying to put the pieces together.

I am not trying to start a fight with you, so please do not come back at me with the biting commentary, the reverse blame, or the 'you don't have room to talk' items here, just please, let there be some commentary without a Mike dictation. I will work on the hostility, if you can work on that. This is why quite a few have a problem with your posting, i know that many have problems with mine, but I am trying to work on it, let's work on this in a productive manner.

You may have a problem with the continuity, but it is rather apparent that others wouldn't. Let's not ruin that, it wouldn't hurt too many people, except for your creedence that KR was a half-assed kids show that had no continuity. Maybe there was, and maybe there is enough evidence to be able to utilize logic and imagination for such. We don't know what the writers had in mind, but it is our way of working on keeping the series fresh if we can fill in the blanks using what canonical items were provided. Maybe it's the fic writer in me, but it's a putoff when people start putting a 'devil's advocate' side to a semi creative issue, when things point to something. Maybe Knight Rider had a little more depth than you are crediting it with. Maybe not, but all the same, maybe it's better to see what they may have left for you than declaring what not.

The Ken Franklyn theory...it makes sense.

KI

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Post by Michael Pajaro » Fri Nov 21, 2003 2:23 am

Does anyone else think that Ken Franklyn was teased a lot as a kid? Ken Franklyn, Ben Franklin; the playground must have been brutal for him.
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Post by themarvelous3 » Fri Nov 21, 2003 4:31 am

knightimmortal wrote:*sigh, bangs head against wall*

Ok, Mike, I have a problem with THIS.
all that seemed a BIT uncalled for. dont want to step on anyones toes...but are you saying that he's not entitled to HIS perception of the show? or that your "guess" into make believe is "more correct" than his? i think both are very possible and the fact that you took time to write all that just to complain that he was spoiling your (and eveyone else's) fun, seems a little...sad.

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Post by ColeGrad01 » Fri Nov 21, 2003 11:17 am

I'd be careful there. KI isn't someone to argue with. I've talked with her individually a few times. She knows the show better than most everyone else, so let her decide what's right to say.

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Post by nivek » Fri Nov 21, 2003 12:47 pm

oh but that make Ki all the beter to argue with the reason i say this is because since she knows what she is talking about then if you argue with her then she can show you why you not right but you have know when it just becomeing moot point too.

Before I read this post I did not know there was a driver for karr ever around.

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Post by ColeGrad01 » Fri Nov 21, 2003 1:31 pm

They never say anything about that. But since Ken Franklyn is mentioned in KNIGHT OF THE DRONES as being the agent until Michael Long was found, there's a possibility he could have been the driver before C.J. Jackson shot him.

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Post by knightimmortal » Fri Nov 21, 2003 1:56 pm

Marvelous3, thank you for your methods of attempting to moderate the situation between me and Mike, but since you are honestly stepping in as a newcomer to the board, and do not know the history behind the more common posters, I would suggest that you stick to the topics and continue on your merry way, and do your best to keep it on topic. You find it sad, that's your perspective. Don't see how it contributes to the topic in any way, but since you feel that you have to excercise your right to butt in, I will be happy to say...move on.

If you had honestly read my response rather than generalizing it, you would note that I was saying that his methodology is a little annoying as it always has been, not that it hasn't been possible.

Now, guys, it's not fair to say not to argue with me, because the whole concept of a discussion board is to discuss. I don't honestly know everything there is to know about Knight Rider. None of us do, not even the people who wrote the book. None of us are armor clad. So, it's probably not right to say not to argue with me.

But in short, those who resort to saying what the writers potentially had in mind as their primary defense...is just a little off. And seeing as Mike has called me on similar occasions in the past, I thought it only fair to return the favor. Seeing as Mike has moved past it, I think all you avengers need to move on and concentrate on the topic at hand, and don't try to spank or reprimand me unless you know the entire situation.

Good day, and move on.

Thank you for yer support. ;)

KI

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Post by Michael Pajaro » Fri Nov 21, 2003 3:05 pm

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KARR

Post by joeb2000 » Tue Nov 25, 2003 10:10 pm

At the end of the 1st KARR episode we all see him go off the cliff and there was a big explosen you think KARR would be in millions of pieced but in the 3rd season when KARR was found he was found by that guy and girl in the sand with out a dent. Only in tv i guess.

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Post by ColeGrad01 » Tue Nov 25, 2003 10:28 pm

That episode with KARR (where man and woman find him) I still need to see. It was awesome finally getting to see what KARR was actually like. I like his voice (Octimus Prime sounding) better than the voice KITT has. I sometimes wish that's what they had used for KITT instead.

People say he only seemed like an isolated individual coming out into society for the first time in TRUST DOESN'T RUST. But as I've heard in KITT VS KARR, he is the evil fighting machine that will crush anything that gets in its way.

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Post by knightimmortal » Tue Nov 25, 2003 10:32 pm

Unfortunately, what you have heard is incorrect, he WON'T crush anything that gets in his way, he uses people to get what he wants.

KI

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