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Documentary Battle!: HBO's 'Woodstock 99' versus Netflix's 'TRAINWRECK: Woodstock 99'

Maybe no one else cares, but I think there is such a crazy dichotomy between these two pieces of media.

  • HBOs Woodstock 99 - a traditional documentary. The conceit is that this huge thing was done a long thing ago with no planning, but it was great. So they tried to do it again with no planning. "The failure was idealism and a lack of planning."

  • Netflix's Trainwreck - as far as I can tell, the conceit is twofold: "hey, we've all been to festivals!" and "hey, we've all seen that doc about Fyre, right? That same thing totally happened in just as crazy of a way before you were born. It was totally just as crazy!" The crowd even shouted for Sheryl Crow to show her tits! In 1999! At a concert!

I'm open to arguments, but darn it seems like the whole first episode of the Netflix version is interviews with people saying "dude I was so high in 99!"

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I'm not watching either one and I didn't go to Woodstock '99, but I am old. Old enough to remember seeing the reports about the situation on the News and Entertainment channels.

"Trainwreck" is the best possible description of the entire event. When a bunch of angsty Nu Metal bands got a bunch of dumb kids all riled up after a couple of days in the hot sun, disaster was bound to follow.

I just hope all of the dumb hippies in change lost a lot of money.

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"Trainwreck" is the best possible description of the entire event

You're completely correct! It was one of the best examples of how badly things can get fricked if you plan all your event logistics around "go with the flow man".

The HBO doc nails this, and crucifies the people responsible for their naivety really well. They show how the promoters failed, how the bookers billed the worst possible acts for the crowds expectations, and how the entire logistics plan for handling hundreds of thousands of people was mismanaged. Great analysis of everything that went wrong.

From the first 2/3 thirds of the Netflix doc I've watched, so far they have blamed frat boys for attending, Korn for headlining the first day, and vaguely blamed 'the rave tent' for drug and nudity problems, which they went on to say established an 'environment of sexual assault'. 2 hours in and zero blamed assigned to the festival promoters.

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:#marseyfedpostglow:

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Haven’t seen either, but I do have a question. If Woodstock was done back in the 70s with no planning, how did it go so well? Like clearly the 99 version failed on many levels, so how did the actual Woodstock function?

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You should watch the Woodstock (1970)movie, super interesting

They literally got saved by the community; fed and clothed them. The people were sleeping in mud, fricked out of their mind on drugs

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It didnt go well lol, people died

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