A 2015 version of the year 2000...
What happens from here?
I had an idea for a great blockbuster movie with a novel twist. Instead of a futuristic disaster/apocalyptic movie, like 2012, this is a reflective disaster/apocalyptic movie.
I present to you: Y2K - THE MOVIE!
Yup, a 2013 vision of the epic world apocalyptic disaster that never happened.
Alas, I don’t have Roland Emmerich’s number, so I’m hoping someone here does.
MORE Importantly, I thought maybe I could throw this out there for creative feedback. Where do I go from here? What should happen next?
(Just please don’t steal my idea, take it to Hollywood and make millions without at least dropping my name in the credits. Dolly Grip is fine)
THE TREATMENT:
IT STARTS WITH A SIMPLE INTERVIEW, a voiceover as intro credits roll:
“Hi Tom Butler, is this Gary Smith with the Seattle P-I, I wanted to interview you about a rumor I’d heard...”
Tom Butler one of the founds of Microsoft and inventor of Windows:
“Yeah, it’s kind of funny, when we wrote all that code, we did it with 6 digit dates month, day, year, like 06-15-94. But what happens when we come to the year two thousand, zero-zero?”
Reporter Gary Smith, not the sharpest pencil in the newsroom, shakes his head. He really doesn’t know what the hell this techie is talking about.
“No, I.. I don’t seem to follow...”, he says.
Butler gets serious, the tone in his voice drops: “Windows Operating System is used by 95% of the computers in the world in about every industry: personal, industrial, police departments, transportation controllers, air traffic control, defense systems. All of them, you name it, they use Windows...”
“Yeah...” Smith says, eyes widening, mind becoming confused with fantasy.
“And all those computer have coded programs, coded with dates that end in two digits...”
“Uh-uh.”
“So what happens when 99 rolls over to 00?”
“I don’t know”.
“Ha!” laughs Butler, mood suddenly light. “Neither do we! We have no idea! We’re working on it right now. it was a horrible lack of foresight in a -what we then thought- was a minor detail: the dates on the coding of the computers. All these computers that now run the world. What will happen?”
Smith’s mind has grasped the concept and is starting to run with it. “What?”
“That’s just it! we don’t know! We’re working on it. I mean, it could be nothing. BUT, conceivably, it could be HUGE! I mean, the computers could stop working, right? if it’s programmed to start on 99 and all the sudden it’s 00...”
“Yeah...”
“Well, can you imagine? These computers not turning on? Not just personal computers, but imagine all the computers out there -traffic lights, electric grids, banks, transportation systems, air traffic control, airplanes even! I mean, airplanes could fall out of the sky...”
“Really?” Smith says in utter awe.
“Well, probably not,” Butler says, moving on, “but that’s what we’re looking into...”
“I see...”
Smith runs back to the office and writes an article. The article is picked up by the USA Today, Fox News, People, and just like that childhood game of telephone, with every new version of the story, it grows in embellishment: What will happen when the clock strikes midnight of January 1st, year 2000? Will everything cease to work?
Will personal computers be forever dead, unable to turn back on?
Will electrical grids stop working?
Will cities be frozen with gridlock?
Will bank accounts be completely erased deleted to zero?
Will planes all out of the sky?
Each new story augments the hypotheticals further and further, stirring the mix that is America’s imagination. Images of utter chaos fill the airwaves.
Rioting!
Looting!
Burning!
Planes falling out of the sky!
Cannibalization!
Cats and dogs living together!
The end of civilization!
Images of chaos flash across the screen, like flipping through TV channels, each image narrated by the voice of a newscaster: one is watching the Statue of Liberty burn to the ground! Another rioters topple the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles! Another British voice announcing that London Bridge has fallen down!
Then we hear hear the gravely voice of an old man. It’s Iron Mike McGee:
“it’s gonna be the end of everything we know, the federal government, the one world government, banks, grocery stores, I mean, how do you get organes up here in the spring time? The nearest orange is 3000 miles away. They ship them up here in trucks. Well, how do they put fuel in trucks? With pumps. And what do the pumps run on? Electricity? And if Y2K knocks out our electrical grid... not just oranges, but everything else...”
Iron Mike McGee is looking into the face of his teenage nephew, Hank. And he’s telling him that the world is about to end.
What happens from here?
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