Synopsis:

Shot and left for dead, Michael Long is given a new face, a new name and a state-of-the-art hi-tech car to get revenge on those that betrayed him by bringing them to justice. Michael, now known as Michael Knight, begins his adventures with a sleek new Pontiac Trans Am called the Knight Industries Two Thousand, better known as KITT. Witness the beginnings of a legendary partnership with a man and his car, a knight and his steed, as they travel around righting wrongs where the law can not go.

Intentions:

As a fan of the series, I wanted to slightly tweak some things in the pilot episode and fix a few continuity errors that really bothered me, both visually and one character driven instance.

Change List:

-Cut ALL Commercial Breaks -Used some public domain footage of 80’s Vegas to fill out the opening shots with added cast members and taking out ones that were cut from this movie. We’re not seeing the classic opening sequence in this edit. -Cut parking lot shooter taking out his gun in plain sight and holding out in the open (this required 2 smallish cuts to mask). He looked really silly doing this. -Cut continuity issue with Michael's body changing positions between shots as Wilton Knight arrives in the helicopter -Cut Wilton saying how handsome Michael's new face is. -Cut references to Michael looking like a young Wilton Knight since it's established later that he looks like Wilton's son Garthe. It's cut in a way that Devon starts to imply who Michael looks like and Wilton shoots him a look and Devon stops mid-sentence. -Fix continuity of KITT’s voice box not blinking when he first talks. -Fix continuity of KITT’s voice box as Michael falls asleep and KITT goes auto cruise. It originally said KNIGHT 2000 over the box. -Cut the 2 guys that keep trying to steal KITT and the joyride KITT takes them on. I wanted us to learn what KITT could do the same time Michael does. -Cutting the 2 car thieves also helps fix a continuity error later on as Michael pulls into a gas station to call Devon where we know later he can call from inside KITT. You could say he didn't know he could do this yet, but this is a 2 birds/1 stone fix. -Cut Michael's line about not being interested in Tanya's body, just her money. It was a weird line. -Cut Maggie’s line "ain't you the David Niven". -Fixed a flipped shot of Michael's license plate during the derby (thanks for catching that @bionicbob!) -Cut down on the budding romance between Michael and Maggie. He shouldn't be forgetting about Stevie so soon (especially since it was retconned that he had a fiancé when he died)! -Cut Comtron establishing shot just before KITT activates. I just wanted a harder cut to KITT after Michael acknowledges he wasn't on the best speaking terms with him. -during the jailbreak, I trimmed so that Michael gets into KITT much quicker and right as Wilson starts shooting at him. It felt a little silly how he'd miss such a close target. -Added the ejector seat sound effect and the beeps winding up to it that was used in later episodes. -Cut Michael shooting at security guard. It's not something Michael would do to an innocent security guard. -Cut KITT's fiery crash through the security guard blockade as they are escaping Comtron. This would 1000% be a turbo boost move, but they saved it for a later scene and instead used a poorly shot maneuver of KITT crashing through them causing the cars to explode. -Cut a shot of KITT driving at what looked like dawn when it’s still supposed to be nighttime throughout this part. -Cut continuity issue of KITT at first saying Michael is fine after being shot, but then when he's talking to Devon he says Michael isn't doing so well. -Cut repeated shot of KITT driving after Trucker calls Winston to inform him Michael drove through the truck. -Inserted a shot of KITT driving and night to break up the scene of the trucker calling Winston and Winston putting out a call for someone to ram into "that Trans Am". -Cut KITT stating the obvious about getting to the airport before encountering any trucks. -Switched around and edited the shots following Michael turbo-boosting over the semi. As soon as he does, he immediately has his exchange with KITT and THEN we get the assassin in the helicopter saying "that car just jumped over the truck". Winston's response was acting like that didn't just happen, so I cut it and his response to the assassin is now about taking the helicopter closer so they can take Michael out. -Tried to hide the continuity errors of Michael's wound flipping back and forth from his right shoulder to left shoulder. He was wounded in his left, so I tried to make sure it stayed that way. -Completely re-worked the climax. Michael learns that a semi is headed his way to crash into him while on the com with Devon. Michael wants to push KITT as far as he can go after learning about the turbo boost, so to bring up the excitement I’ve added Journey’s Separate Ways to bring us from the build-up to the semi jump and through to Michael crashing the plane wing. NOTE: The song was released January of 1983, so it’s close enough to being accurate to the release of this episode lol. I’m extremely happy with how well it works and I think you’ll enjoy it too! -Added sound effect to the implied KITT crashing into the private jet's wing to stop it from taking off. -Cut down on Michael and Maggie's goodbye and the implication he'd be back. Spoiler, he doesn't go back. I wanted to keep the romance one-sided and keep Michael as a polite loner. -Re-worked the ending a little. Michael and Devon have their moment on the jet where they agree to continue Wilton's dream and then we'll cut to the Knight Industries semi with Michael backing out while the truck is in motion. As Michael backs out, we'll hear Wilton saying "one man can make a difference" and then the opening narration from Wilton will continue like normal and we watch Michael ride off onto his next adventure with the opening theme playing. -POST CREDITS SCENE inserted to hint at the next movie -POST CREDITS CARD inserted saying Michael and KITT will return

Additional Notes:

There were quite a few needle drop songs in this pilot movie and I at one point wanted to fix all of them since they are all covers and not the original artists. It would've been too daunting to do, but I knew that I wanted to include one additional needle drop to build up some excitement during the climax. While Separate Ways was released in January of 1983, I felt this was close enough timing wise to use it.

Other Sources:

-Knight Rider Soundtrack -Separate Ways by Journey