Help KR fans with a Knight of the Phoenix question!

[3rings]

I recently watched the pilot that started it all, Knight of the Phoenix, After Michael was shot then rescued, Did they take his transam and strip it down and rebuilt it into KITT or was there already another transam being built into KITT? I'm confused on this,

Thanks for the help and answers.

John

[weeezl]

Good question!

It was implied they did build it from Michael Longs car in the pilot.

How does that explain why they used a Trans-Am for Karr though?

Maybe a coincidence ML drove the same car or FLAG had their eye on ML for a while and knew what car he drove so used the same for the prototype?

Nobody really knows the answer to this one!

[FuzzieDice]

In the episode where Michael lost his memory (forgot the name of it now), Devon and April showed Michael the newspaper news article for "Michael Long" being killed, and it said in the article that they found Long's car in the desert (the newspaper reporters or authorities did). So they left HIS car out there as something to find along with a cadaver with a mutilated face, which was buried (remember in the pilot Devon remarked about using a cadaver from some research center to be found and how ethical it was and Wilton said the government did it all the time).

So KITT is NOT Micheal's original car.

[Shadowy Flight]

The correct answer is...there is no correct answer. Continuity in the 80's didn't matter. We didn't have episodes that interlocked with other episodes. We have Seinfeld, ER and Simpsons to blame for that. Think I'm making too bold of a statement? Just look at how many times they recycled the same supporting actors in other roles. Shawn Southwick played the evil Loni in the pilot and then the damsel in distress in Goliath. There are other actors too. But the continuity of the Karr episodes themselves don't make sense. How does his scanner and voicebox suddenly change? How does he all of a sudden have a KARR plate? We all love Knight Rider and we want the continuity to be perfect but its not. I have lost sleep over trying to make ALL story lines fit but like Star Wars prequels, it won't. But here's my explanation of how to make it all fit the way we want it to. Its a "force fit" but I'll make this shoe fit like an evil step sister. Larson wrote the pilot without the intention of there being an "evil twin" but even if he did, there's no way KARR could've been a prototype because it would've been too much of a coincidence that Michael Long's car was the same car. The only way that would've worked is if Michael Long was shot in the face, they took his 82 Trans Am, made a prototype called Karr, screwed up and made Kitt just as he was walking towards the red scanner in the pilot. THERE IS NO OTHER REASON FOR MAKING IT THE SAME CAR. We WANT to believe its the same car because it makes the story fit better that way. So why shouldn't we? Besides, in the novelization of the episode which came out at the same time the pilot did, Michael long was supposed to be driving a limo, got shot and paired with a new car. The metaphor works better if the person who got a facelift; his car also got a facelift. Otherwise, we could say the person with mummy wraps on was NOT Michael Long. Michael Long died, coincidentally another accident victim with a perm and the name Michael was getting a facelift. How ridiculous would that be? It would take away from the story. MAKE NO MISTAKE (geez I sound like dubya), whether it was Larson or Haller's choice to use the Trans Am (for story telling purposes), it was no coincidence. The relevant symbolism is that one man and his car both got a facelift. We have to put aside the other episodes like Trust Doesn't Rust, Kitt vs. Karr and Knightmares. because if you go along with that, then you have to follow along another storyline called A Good Knight's Work where they dug up Long's grave and found... an empty casket? What happened to the cadaver? Let's face it folks, this was not the mid 90's, it was the early 80's and VCRs were uncommon so they weren't expecting you to even have this on tape. They just HOPED you remembered some faint details. But now with reruns, DVRs,Tivo and DVD box sets and recorders, its a director's worse nightmare as now they must be more careful about historical inaccuracies let alone mistakes. Heck, they want you to forget about the Knight 4000 completely but even I have a strategy to force to make that work. Lets just say all that stuff in Knight Rider 2000 DID happen. Kitt did become KIFT and Devon DID die. Michael now takes over Devon's duties and enters Mike Traceur. What about the K3000? Well, brace yourself, but we can pretend the 2 cars co-exist somewhere. You see Maddox is running his own thing somewhere with the new corporate Foundation. Another F.L.A.G. exists with Charles Graiman and he didn't downgrade to the K3000, the fact is, the poor guy was just a technology expert and created the K3000 independently as a scientist while the K4000 is off fighting other crimes. The 2 Trans Ams he's got in his garage? Easy. Kitt was dismantled and put in K4000 right? So Charles Graiman bidded for them at a local auction for Knight Industries called K-Bay (sorry I couldn't resist) and was putting the old pieces back together again. The other Trans Am? Karr of course. But if everything I said makes no sense then one of the cars under the drapes is...Michael Long's Trans Am. Everything has to come full circle or its just bad storytelling. Thank you for reading. P.S. So that means the K3000 was a red mustang named Domino who went under a sex change during Team Knight Rider. Just kidding...or am I?

[Stuntman Lee]

I'm pretty sure the events of Knight Rider 2000 are being ignored.

Going back to the Knight Of The Phoenix, would it be right to assume that the Foundation had been keeping tabs on Michael Long and intended/hoped he would work with them, regardless of getting shot in the face?

[epc1122]

if memory serves me right, in the pilot when michael is first introduced to kitt, he tells devon that he knows his car. however, devon says, this isnt the same car that you knew. or how they completely revamped it with the molecular bonding shell. well if you rewatch taht scene, it kind of tells us that it is the same car that michael long had, but it did undergo a facelift, like long/knight. at least, thats how i took it. it really is all subjective. i could see them doing research on michael long and customizing kitt after his trans am, as sort of an incentive to join with them. but since karr turned out to be messed up, and long being shot, they figured, well we have the blueprints for a trans am, we may as well use longs actual car. to me, this makes sense, not sure if it does for anyone else lol. i do like the idea of the knight 4000 still existing but that program ended up failing. so it existed but everyone from that organization ended up retiring as well. i mean that was over ten years already. graimen received the old kitt just in case there was ever a need for a new kitt, in the hopes of bringing what was special to the original kitt to it. in the knight 2000 movie it was pretty clear that the original kitt was special and cant be replicated. but maybe with more work, they can at least try to replicate it. i think this is the basis for the new tv show. kitt does evolve throughout the series. again, this makes sense to me lol.

[PHOENIXZERO]

Read this topic where it went to start discussing this issue:

viewtopic.php?f=1041

[Stuntman Lee]

Read this topic where it went to start discussing this issue:

viewtopic.php?f=1041

link doesn't work.

[PHOENIXZERO]

Whoops, I cut off part of the link.

viewtopic.php?f=1041&t=12054