I honestly have no idea why! I was watching the BTS documentary (halfway through) and they haven't said why they chose 2002. They started the production in 2018, so it's not like this has been in development for over 20 years (afaik). Maybe they just wanted a simple technological time? It honestly didn't throw me out at all. The only time 2002 is mentioned is in one sequence where they display a calendar and their use of flip phones is probably a 2-min sequence.

I think the only biographical nature of the movie is taking the creator's heritage and applying it to the main family. A few of the women on the team (it's an all-female team, btw!) are of Chinese descent and said they used their likeness to develop the characters' appearances, which I thought was really cool.