This could have been an interesting documentary, but unfortunately it is poorly edited and written. At almost 90 minutes, it is WAY too long and could have covered the same ground in 1 hour (or less). It committed the worst sin for a documentary - it was boring.
The documentary contains no new narration, instead relying on many sources for clips and interviews - from network broadcasts to home videos and more. It attempts to track the growing concern of the Y2K bug that is forecast to impact all computer systems on New Year's Day 2000. Why? Because early programmers, in an attempt to save "space" in coding, only coded the year with 2 digits. So 1990 was simply "90" and so on. It was feared that this Y2K bug would paralyze all computers worldwide on New Year's 2000, since they would not recognize the year and would mistakenly reset to 1900. Planes would fall from the sky, nuclear missiles would accidentally launch, the power grid would fail, etc. But when New Year's Day 2000 came, nothing happened.
Many people (myself included) lived those days leading up to Y2K. As a consultant in the late 1990s, I was responding to proposals that required firms to provide proof of Y2K compatibility (real proof didn't really exist). The film mostly documents the fear-mongering leading up to Y2K. That included hoarding supplies, increased gun sales, learning to live off the land, etc. But most people I knew, while they were mildly concerned about it, didn't take the change over to 2000 as a serious problem. Some banks recommended having some cash on hand in case ATM's temporarily stopped working (which they didn't). Other than that, it was a non-event. A joke.
So after more than an hour-long build-up, New Year's Day 2000 comes along and nothing happens. The Y2K bug goes away with no real explanation. A few of the people warning about the "end of the world" (and making money off that fear) simply said "well, we did a good job preparing the computer systems for Y2K." But was it even a problem to begin with? I recall when New Year's Day 2000 happened, nothing unusual happened to my home computer, and I didn't do anything extra to make sure it was "Y2K compliant".
No, the Y2K fear mongering turned out to be one of the biggest frauds in modern times. Yet, this film pretty much glosses over it. Yet, that could have been a major part of the story.
Now the core material is there to be properly re-edited and narrated to make this a more informative piece and entertaining. But as presented, it resembles a poor production by a second-year film student.
5 out of 15 found this helpful.
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