Time Bomb Y2K

Splicing archival footage in with a contemporary retrospective, but that isn't what this is. Th list documentary is entirely from archival footage with the most prominent voiceover being Leonard Nimoy, who has died over 5 years ago.

There's about 5 minutes dedicated to explaining what Y2K was and it's potential impact and the rest of it is just padding. You could swap half the runtime with an episode of doomsday preppers and the only noticable change would be video and audio quality.

This could have been something great some modern commentary about lessons learned, shortsighted management, other potential ICT disasters or even parallels to global warming but as it stands, it's merely an 80 minute timesink.

"Time Bomb," marketed as a documentary chronicling the infamous millennium bug, falls short of its potential to create a captivating time capsule. The film primarily relies on a compilation of old news articles, offering a montage of historical moments without delving into the depth needed to provide a meaningful perspective on the Y2K phenomenon.

One of the film's major drawbacks is its brevity, featuring only fleeting 15-second interviews with industry titans like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos. These brief snippets fail to offer substantial insights or reflections on the challenges and fears surrounding the Y2K bug. It leaves viewers yearning for a more in-depth exploration of the thoughts and strategies of these influential figures during that pivotal time.

While the idea of using archival footage to revisit the turn of the millennium is intriguing, "Time Bomb" lacks the narrative cohesion necessary to tie these disparate clips together effectively. The disjointed nature of the film leaves audiences with a sense of missed opportunity, as it neglects to weave a compelling story around the Y2K bug and its impact on society.

Moreover, the documentary's overall uneventful quality mirrors the anti-climactic nature of the Y2K bug itself. The film fails to capture the tension and anticipation that characterized the lead-up to the year 2000. Instead of offering a nuanced exploration of the social and technological landscape of that time, "Time Bomb" merely scratches the surface with a superficial montage of historical snippets.

Ultimately, "Time Bomb" disappoints as a documentary that could have served as a valuable time capsule for future generations. Its lack of depth and failure to provide a comprehensive understanding of the Y2K era make it a poor recommendation for anyone seeking a meaningful insight into the turn of the millennium and the challenges some of us lived through.

This documentary is nicely done, but not perfect. It could easily have been three to five minutes shorter, which would have helped with the pacing. Nevertheless, this is an interesting presentation of archival footage.

I like the way this film covers optimists, realists, and pessimistic survivalists. As someone who lived through this, I can tell you there was a LOT of hype back then. Scaremongers selling books were saying things like freeway accidents would occur as power brakes failed at the stroke of midnight. These sorts of claims were laughable of course -- no engineer is going to increase his workload by making systems more complex than needed -- especially when the system MUST be reliable. Why on earth would a power braking system need to know the time and date? It's ridiculous.

As the New Year came and went, the film shifted into covering some interesting and (mostly) uplifting thoughts about global connectivity and the uncertainty and possibilities of the new Millennium.

While not highly structured, this documentary has a straightforward (linear) time-flow, a decent cross-section of opinions, a low-key tone, and a good ending that raises questions about the future. I would have changed a few things, but not much, so I'm *tempted* to give it seven stars. HOWEVER, the film did NOT excite me, and I doubt it will be of great interest to the average viewer. So I think a "proper" rating, considering the big picture, is probably five (5) stars, which is also an accurate reflection of the entertainment value I received.

As "Timebomb Y2K" (2023 release; 84 min) opens, we are in "1996" as Bill Clinton and AL Gore yap it up about the "information super highway", and big names like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos all weigh in. Then comes along a no-name doomsayer Peter De Jager, warning about the "millennium bug" to anyone who will listen to him... At this point we are 10 minutes into the documentary.

Couple of comments: with 20/20 hindsight provided by the passage of a quarter century, we now look back at the hype that was the millennium bug. Was it ever a fact? We simply cannot tell as of course nothing happened when December 31, 1999 changed into January 1, 2000. De Jager says that doom was averted because so much work was done by so many in the leadup of Y2K. I have no idea. What we know is this: preparing for Y2K became a cotton industry in and of itself. It also gave (yet another) excuse to the fringes of society to spout all kinds of non-sensical conspiracy theories (the Y2K bug was a plot by the federal government to come take your guns away! No, really!). Bottom line: whether it was a fact or just hype, it now feels like the Y2K bug is at best a curiosity or footnote in history, and that is how this documentary comes across as well.

"Timebomb Y2K" played at various film festivals in 2023, and it started airing on HBO and streaming on Max (where I caught it) in late December. If you feel a little nostalgic about the "good ol' days" of the late 90s, I'd readily suggest you check this out (with expectations in check), and draw your own conclusion.

A nice time capsule to show what it was like at the turn of the millennium. A good demonstration of how crazy people can get, but also how people can come together and solve a massive problem, by listening to the people who know what they are talking about and not the people in the fringes. Seems more important now than ever.

The documentary is just made from archive footage and doesn't really talk about the bug itself that much. But does show the world of 20 odd years ago and paints a picture of the optimism and panic that surrounded the turn of the millennium.

Gave a nice nostalgic watch to a time that seems like yesterday in my brain.