This isn't an ideal place for this as there are a lot of things I like about it but given the discussion of non-nuclear WW3s has returned I might as well. It's times these like these I kinda wish we had a "*Larry David standing between a protest and counter-protest* Alternate History story" thread.
World War III, originally
Der Dritte Weltkrieg, gets a lot right both in its clever mix of archival footage with filmed scenes to create a AH world that feels more lived-in than many other mockumentaries. The plot is more the issue but even there are good points to it. The full thing is on youtube and I'll link to it before going into spoiler territory.
An earlier, and successful, hardliner coup against Gorbachev is certainly an interesting PoD and the fact it's written from the standpoint of the late nineties also gives it a curious dimension. The story is largely told by a narrator with talking heads, both from NATO, Warsaw Pact, as well as ordinary German civilians* adding their two cents. Those on the west or of pro-western viewpoints talk of their dismay at the coup and the subsequent events, the civilians talk of crushed dreams and impotent rage, whilst the Soviet hardliners defend themselves and theorise what would have happened if they hadn't acted.
It's quite clever, as is the slow stumble of both sides into conventional, and ultimately nuclear, conflict. There's obviously a western-slant to it all but it's never too egregious. America (or Bundeswehr) Fuck Yeah does not make an appearance.
Until the conventional war, which is where the whole mockumentary really falls down. It comes in the form of the really tedious see-saw type battle that seems to manifest itself a lot in AH and it does feel contrived. The reason I suspect that is that the production talks about how it made great use of plans by both sides and war games and you feel there are moments where this is the case; talk of both sides expending much of their ammunition in the first days, large parts of both airforces being taken out on the ground, social disintegration in West Germany leading to clogged roads, etc. It all seems to flow with the sober tone of the rest of the mockumentary but it feels like at some point there needs to be a clear NATO victory which is where things deviate from this tone. When things are at their darkest, NATO merely gains full air supremacy over the course of a day, Soviet equipment suffers major breakdowns and their command structure is beheaded, Warsaw Pact troops desert and the satellite regimes collapse, NATO suddenly has no issues with ammunition, the roads unclog themselves, and within two weeks NATO are at the Polish border having to reassure the Soviets that they don't intend on Barbarossa, which the Soviets disbelieve. Cue Tom Lehrer.
I think the reason why I find it so annoying is because the build-up is pretty good. If the whole thing was just campily bad it wouldn't have stuck out as much but it really did feel like all the Romero-esque talk of "We killed ourselves due to miscommunication, thankfully this didn't happen" at the end is overcome by "but if it did, we would give kicked their asses."
*
This was originally a ZDF production although the English version was a collaboration with an American studio, apparently there isn't much difference between the German and English versions
