The Y2K plot was already made by the Simpsons more than twenty years ago

The following contains spoilers for Y2K, now playing in theatersY2K shares some major plot beats with an episode of The Simpsons more than twenty years ago. Y2K is a time capsule of a film, leaning into the culture of 1999 in much of its comedy and world-building. The cast of Y2K They are largely teenagers facing drama and interpersonal conflicts as they prepare to celebrate the start of the new millennium. It's a fun take on sci-fi horror films, imagining a world where the Y2K bug has led to the emergence of malicious machines across the planet.

Y2K leans heavily into 1999 culture, with references to many different films, video games, music, and TV shows. This includes The Simpsonswith a handful of characters openly referencing the long-running animated show. This takes on an additional layer of irony considering that Y2K and The Simpsons in fact, they mock the anxiety surrounding the Y2K bug in the same way. See how The Simpsons basically made the plot of Y2K for more than twenty years.

Y2K has the same plot as the Treehouse Of Horror segment

Y2K Covers the same subject matter as A Treehouse of Horror

Y2K shares many plot similarities with The Simpsons' Season 11 Treehouse of Horror special, specifically the “Life's a Glitch, Then You Die” segment. Both the film and the short premiere on New Year's Eve, at the turn of the millennium. Both plots revolve around the Y2K bug, which proves to be incredibly dangerous.with all infected technology becoming sentient to attack humanity. Both versions of the story use the technology of the time to attack people, with things as innocuous as Tamagotchis or pacemakers becoming killers.

There are some differences in the way computer viruses work between the two. In Y2KThe bug is caused by machines openly rebelling against humanity in an attempt to oust them as the dominant species on Earth. The Simpsons made the fallout from the Y2K bug the direct result of Homer's ineptitude, as his failure to prepare the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant for the event is what triggers the apocalypse. Y2K also gives the resulting AI collective mind a shared consciousness, while The Simpsons leans into the more chaotic dangers of technology.

The Simpsons just got a lot darker than 2000

'Life's A Glitch, Then You Die' has a much darker ending than Y2K

While Y2K and The Simpsons played with the same premise, they approached it from very different perspectives. Y2K is almost entirely from the point of view of teenagers, while “Treehouse of Horror X” keeps the attention on the titular family. The end of Y2K It's also bittersweet, but it sees humanity overcome the dangers posed by technology. In The Simpsonsthe world has a much darker ending. The chaos and destruction caused by the machines eventually results in a nuclear conflict, with the Earth covered in mushroom clouds.

A rocket carrying some of Earth's brightest minds escapes to Mars, but the rest of humanity is presumably wiped out. Not even the entire Simpsons family makes it to safety, as Homer and Bart end up on a rocket heading for the sun (and choose to die in the vacuum of space). Both stories play with the same premise, but end up using it to tell very different stories.. While Y2K plays the apocalyptic dark comedy story, The Simpsons proves that things didn't get as dark as they could have.