why does Hollywood always make them dumb imbeciles of classc TV characte

From a personal perspective, I'd guess that these movies (and now the Chips movie) are all "spoofs" of the original material.

When I think about these period, made for tv dramas I understand (being 20-30+ years later) that attempting to adapt those shows for the big screen in a way that is true to the original theme is problematic for the 2010's. Half-serious campy dramas laced with parables and life lessons should stay where they belong and that is on prime time TV back in the 1970's and 80's. I can guess that since corny jokes and innocent PG rated humor would probably not sell movie tickets today--particularly if coupled with censored action sequences--producers need to update themes and material not only for modern times but also for box office.

I think that a gritty, high drama cop movie theme like Pacino's "Heat" wouldn't work any better than the campy original, and as long as Chips isn't an awful sight-gag stinker like "Date Movie" then it'll be watchable and enjoyable to some degree.

Besides, motor cops don't solve crimes, they work in traffic enforcement writing speeding tickets. If the ***sies on here are hell bent on decrying thematic elements of a movie they haven't watched yet they should at least come to grips with the fact that even the original show was off the mark as far as being true to reality.