646f9e108c In the future, guns are banned and criminals are frozen for the duration of their sentences. A recent spate of killings involving handguns brings Michael Knight back to fight for justice, but he insists of the help of KITT, his artificially-intelligent car from decades ago. The only problem is that KITT has been deactivated. In the year 2000, criminals are frozen, handguns are banned from everyone–including the police, and crime is at an all time low… So why has the mayor been murdered with an illegal handgun? Rookie cop Shawn McCormick is asking these questions while still trying to learn the ropes of the police department. Letting her curiousity getting the better of her, Shawn recovers the murder weapon and begins asking too many questions resulting in the killer, an ex-cop and unfrozen convicted murderer, Thomas J. Watts, to shoot her in the head and leave her for dead. She is saved, however, by a computer chip transplant to her brain, but the resulting damage has caused her to lose her most recent memory. Meanwhile, the Knight Foundation is trying to stay alive in the city by trying to win a contract for their new project, the Knight 4000. The police department wants them out–why should they have to stumble over a freelance organization? The Deputy Mayor Harold Abbey, newly promoted to succeed the late mayor, gives them 30 days to complete the 4000. Russell Maddock, the new Foundation CEO is too proud to ask for help, leaving Devon Miles, still the controlling entity of the Foundation, to look himself. Michael Knight has moved on to a simpler life. Fishing, relaxing, waxing his classic 1957 Chevy every other day, and trying hard to leave his life in the Foundation behind. When Devon shows up to ask for help, he has a hard time being convinced that it is worth it to return, but he finally decides to do so… &quot;only under one condition.&quot; Only there is no condition… not anymore. The Knight Industries Two Thousand- or KITT for short, once the cornerstone of AI Technology, has been deactivated and dismantled. Devon and Michael are outraged, Maddock is uncaring, indicating that the Knight 4000 is on it&#39;s way, so the old must go. Michael somehow gains the technological knowhow to restore and reactivate KITT, and then place him into his 57 Chevy. KITT is angry for being deactivated and shoved out of the way for ten years, and even more angry that his parts were sold off, and the one part that wasn&#39;t recovered, his memory chip, was swapped for a bogus chip. Guess where his original chip ended up… Shawn finds her way to the Knight Foundation after quitting the police department and it is quickly revealed that the transplant has altered her personality. She is more aggressive and less of a team player, but has a superior intellect thanks to her bionic technology. Shawn is hired and brought on boardMichael&#39;s partner to help investigate the growing illegal handgun problems in the city. Thanks to KITT&#39;s help and their constant investigation, they discover a massive police department conspiracy to sell banned handguns on the black market, but their discoveries place their lives in peril and causes the death of one of the Foundation&#39;s own. This film while it has some good points is a fine example of what happens when Canadian&#39;s get their hands on high octane 80&#39;s action shows. They did it to Airwolf and the tried to do it to Knight Rider.<br/><br/>This was obviously a pilot episode for a show that never was and the reasons it never was are obvious. The idea was fine but the execution left a lot to be desired. The flaws are even more apparent after watching the first season episodes and the original pilot in the same DVD set. <br/><br/>The original show had the right idea and concept behind it. The car is the star of the show, it is indestructible, and has an arrogant personality to match. Combine that with the music that keeps you pumped into the action, a bunch of gratuitous explosions, death defying stunts and a pre-Baywatch David Hasselhoff and you have a certifiable 80&#39;s hit. <br/><br/>The first misfire in this project was taking the car out of the equation for 60% of it. I can understand that the Knight 4000 Pontiac Banshee was a little more expensive and one of a kind then the Knight 2000 Firebird but they didn&#39;t even present us with a single stunt that couldn&#39;t have been performed by an &#39;84 Dodge Omni with fake wood paneling. On a positive note the new car itself had the potential of being really cool. The Banshee concept car is a sleek and cool update of the Firebird from the original series and seems to fit what we&#39;d like to seethe KITT of the future. I think they should have painted it black,a bright Red car tends to stand out almostmuchStarsky and Hutch&#39;s striped tomato. I understand they didn&#39;t have the budget to make several Banshee&#39;s to do the terrific stunts the original show had, but they could have tried a little harder to up the action with the car. <br/><br/>The second big problem was the music. The original score was exactly that, original. You could identify the show by its theme alone; it is almostfamousthe car. Knight Rider 2000 seemed to emphasize the kind of synthesizer music that the worst fare on the sci-fi channel usually gets. It&#39;s very soft, it&#39;s very soothing and it sounds like it should be on a relaxation tape and not an action show. <br/><br/>Third. I hate the way that shows like this exploit the future or at least how shows used to exploit that great year 2000. It wasif they felt that they could slap the year 2000 on a show and make it seem like is somewhere in the 24th century. They tend to present a time where Utopian societies formed almost overnight and replaced years of humanities attempts to prevent anything of the sort. I&#39;m not holding this critique of this show alone, they did it throughout the 90&#39;s almost up to y2k when they realized, you know what it&#39;s nearly the year 2000 and society hasn&#39;t suddenly and magically morphed into an idealistic utopia like in star trek, nor has it been taken over by rampaging robots or evil computers. So why is it that they, in 1991, would assume for some reason that we would suddenly invent a cryogenic prison system, amazing brain transfer devices, sonic stun guns and the complete outlaw of all handguns by the year 2000. Now if I&#39;m not mistaken things like this usually take about ten to twenty years to perfect and put into real practice, yet they felt that nine years later all of these magical changes would take place. Combine that with their jokes about President Dan Quayle,if a gun ban would pass under that kind of administration. <br/><br/>The Fourth major issue is once again we find ourselves in an unnamed American city that looks suspiciously like Vancouver. It&#39;s like Stargate SG-1 &quot;See the Universe of Vancouver&quot; cause to quote the great Buckaroo Banzai &quot;No mater where you go, there you are.&quot; I suppose it&#39;s no worse then in the 70&#39;s and 80&#39;s when every unnamed American city was LA. But it seems to me that when you have an action show against criminals you set it in some place like LA. Not to knock Vancouver&#39;s own criminal element, especially in the Utopian future of the year 2000, but Canadian shows always come offsomewhat stale, dry cleaned and pressed in a such a way that seems to brush away the gritty nature of classic American TV. <br/><br/>What is Knight Rider without KITT? I&#39;ll tell you what it is; it&#39;s David Hasselhoff and his partner running around with a sonic stun gun in a shopping mall. It was the action and the car that made the original show what it was, and by trying to up the science fiction angle to cover for the lack of anything going on in the plot or on the screen it made for a very long hour and a half. Unlike the producers of KR2k Hasselhoff figured out the right way to present this kind of mundane action, and while that show is not remembered for it&#39;s plots or it action, it is remembered for all the hot women running around in Bikini&#39;s. The failure of this to take off is the samethe failure of Baywatch Nights. David Hasselhoff - hot women in swim suits and - action stunt talking car = something that will be popular in Germany but leave the rest of the world scratching its head. I remember seeing &quot;Knight Rider 2000&quot; when it came out in 1991,I loved it then and I loved it now,it was so great to see David Hasselhoff reprise his roleMichael Knight and Edward MulhareDevon Miles,William Danielsthe voice of KITT.<br/><br/>In the year 2000,in Seattle,Washington,hand guns are banned,and some of the criminals are frozen in suspended animation for their sentence.Devon Miles and Russell Maddock,F.L.A.G.&#39;s VP,played by Carmen Argenziano(Sudden Impact and Booker) deal with the politicians of Seattle,trying to get them to form a partnership with The Foundation For Law And Government.They have a new car called the &quot;Knight 4000&quot;,which is still need of testing.Devon goes visit an old friend,Michael Knight,who retired from the Foundation in 1990 to live a quiet life and to fish.Devon asks Michael for help,Michael is reluctant but does come back.Devon finds out that KITT was scrapped,his parts sold cause of Russell Maddock.they do get some of KITT&#39;s components back except a chip.Michael putts KITT&#39;s central processing unit together,KITT is functioning again.<br/><br/>Later,the Mayor is at a dinner,and gets murdered by a guy in a ski mask and a young lady cop named Shawn McCormick,played by the beautiful Susan Norman,deals with the man,but the man gets away,Officer McCormick finds the gun and stumbles on the conspiracy of some members of the police force.Shawn and her partner investigate a robbery and Shawn gets shot in the head by Thomas Watts,a prisoner from the cryo-prison who gets released,played by Mitch Pileggi(Shocker and The X Files),a former cop who was convicted of murder.Thomas Watts want to sell guns on the open market.Shawn McCormick&#39;s life gets saved by a doctor who gives her a chip in the brain,though the city commissioner did not authorized the doctor to do so.Shawn is upset to learn that the commissioner did not want to authorize the chip implant,Shawn tells her off and resigns from the police force.Shawn goes to The Foundation For Law and Government for a job interview with Russell Maddock and Devon Miles.Michael finds out where KITT&#39;s missing chip went to,Devon introduces Shawn McCormick to Michaelthe missing chip cause KITT&#39;s chip is implanted in Shawn McCormick&#39;s brain.Shawn and Michael go work together and KITT,who is now inside Michael Knight&#39;s 1957 Chevy,go to work and manage to help Shawn regain some of her memory.They discover a conspiracy in the police force,Russell Maddock is convinced that is is also higher up.<br/><br/>Michael and KITT manage to tap into the police computer frame by KITT getting a jump start.meanwhile,Russell Maddock and Devon go for a drive in the Knight 4000,it has the voice of Russell Maddock.Devon and Russell Maddock start to show respect for one another andwhen Russell leaves,Devon is abducted by Thomas Watts&#39;s rogue cops and is murdered.Michael and Shawn narrowly escapes the rogue cops by driving into the sea.Michael,after Devon&#39;s funeral,decides to leave,he his hurt very badly by the death of Devon.Shawn goes to talk to Michael about coming back,she knows why Michael left the Foundation in 1990 cause Michael became burned out.Michael does come back,he puts KITT&#39;s central processing unit into the Knight 4000,Russell Maddock couldn&#39;t believe that Michael did that.Michael and Shawn go out to deal with Thomas Watts and his group of rogue cops,they find out the new mayor is the one who is in charge of the gun sales and the release of Watts from the cryo-prison.Michael,KITT, and Shawn deal Watts.Things are better now,Shawn,now has a new partner,KITT,Michael is going back to retirement to fish..<br/><br/>I give this TV movie 10/10 stars and 2 thumbs up.<br/><br/>A special guest appearance by James Doohan(Scotty of Star Trek)as himself made this movie more interesting.
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