Does Equestria Girls take place in the 80s?

[TheAnimatorOfficial 567]

I find it to be so, or at least there's a big allusion. Yeah there are laptops and smartphones, but besides that, everything seems to signal that time period.

 

In Equestria Girls the outfits are very styalized and flamboyant, which was very prevalent back then. The hairstyles too.

 

Rainbow Rocks was based on glam pop/rock, as were the outfits during the final battle and worn by the Dazzlings.

 

In Friendship Games Sci Twi dresses like a typical 80s nerd, plus there's an emphasis on science fiction and the supernatural in the movie, both of which were big in 80s pop culture.

 

In Legend of Everfree as well as continuation on anomalies the Girls transform into very flashy characters that you would find in a lot of 80s cartoons.

 

Combine all that with the very separated social interests throughout the film.

 

I'm probably overanalyzing this but it's something that's been in the back of my head for a while.

[Jeric 46,864]

It seems to invoke multiple decades. Probably mixed sensibilities of DHX staff since some grew up as teens and children different decades. I mean, it's definitely not in-your-face apparent like shows that are obviously set in the 80's (Stranger Things for instance).

[Rhapsody 112]

Well, I kind of like to think of the Equestria Girls dimension as a cross between their world and ours. I mean, obviously it's not EXACTLY like our world, no one here has purple skin, do they? So maybe the fact that this dimension is different from ours means that it can be as meshed up as it wants when it comes to time periods. However, the idea that it takes place in the 80's is pretty cool, and I gotta admit, minus the present technology, it fits!

[Ganondorf8 11,402]

I'd say the movies take place in the same time period that humans are in right now, the early 21st century, but aren't as conscious about their sense of fashion compared with people of today. Then again, it could be the writers wanting to embrace the nostalgia--to an extent--of the brand or it could be a hidden nod to generation one as it originally aired in the 1980s.

[cmarston1 5,959]

I am pretty sure that the film's pretty obviously take place during this decade.

[silvadel 1,393]

Again it has things that ponies think are more important advancing at a greater rate than things ponies do not.  Hence you get smartphones early.  If you think of it as ponies as humans, advanced say 50 years from MLP and without magic.  It obviously has a narrower band because of the lack of magic.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they went slightly futuristic on something in an MLP movie if the plot needed it and it was pony friendly.

[----- 477]

I assume the movies take place during our time, but it is more 80s based as a reminder of the original "My little Pony era" (aka. G1).

[Steve Piranha 29,447]

I'm pretty sure the time period is the same as our, but these older stuff that are there, are easily explained by this trope

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TotallyRadical

[heavens-champion 1,905]

Not very likely. They have smart phones, which I don't think were invented in the 80's.

[Fhaolan 4,484]

Using purely fashion as a gauge (Rarity would be proud), there are things in there spanning from the early 60's on up to about 2000. However, the shorts made for Rainbow Rocks showed them using more modern Smartphones rather casually and pervasively, which puts it at sometime after 2008. So this, unfortunately, falls into the standard cartoon 'no set time' period where people are far more individual with their fashion than is true in RL.

[FallCake 6]

Definitely this time peroid, since the series has regularly featured phones, laptops, social media, YouTube, and modern video games.

[KPackratt 387]

If "The Last Day of School" short was the first Equestria Girls cartoon I saw, I would've believed the possibility of it taking place during the 80s (as Rainbow Dash watched a VHS tape of a Daring Do movie in that short), at least until I saw more of the cartoons and noticed the use of more current technologies than what they had in that decade.

"Friendship Through the Ages" is another short that would've given a first time viewer the impression of the series being set in the 80s, judging by the choice of costumes portrayed in that one.

[tomatopotato 106]

I'm not ancient enough to know 80's culture, but from what I've read and seen I'm going to assume EQG is based in late 90's to early 2000's. That's because the fashion style is seriously outdated, but they had actual laptops and smartphones and stuff. Being a tech nerd, I can infer that those devices are pretty chunky, which is basically all early laptops before 2016 or so. The phones also have a bunch of buttons, and the latest example of phones with that many physical buttons I can think of is the Blackberry - which was introduced in 2002.

However........I did notice how humane Scootalo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle were watching a YouTube video in the first movie. That YouTube didn't look like the ancient one - it's user interface was similar to 2020-ish YouTube. I'm pretty sure that YouTube didn't even have that UI when the first EQG movie released, so I'm just guessing that it was just simple art and not a reference to modern user interfaces.