History Main / AmbiguousTimePeriod

* ''Film/Batman'' loves this trope. Reporters use very old fashioned cameras and a lot of the film's elements seem to be from TheForties, and yet Batman himself has very modern technology; far better than anything that existed when the movie was made!

* ''Film/Brazil'' deliberately plays with this. It's set "Somewhere In The Twentieth Century"- whilst genre convention would normally dictate a dystopia of this type, it's also very {{Zeerust}}y and could just as easily be a twisted version of the then present-day world. It's left deliberately ambiguous, and in a way the precise setting isn't meant to be that important.

* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' takes place in "199X". [[VideoGame/{{Mother3}} It's sequel]] is even less helpful.

* "VideoGame/EarthBound" takes place in "199X". [[VideoGame/{{Mother3}} It's sequel]] is even less helpful.

* "[[EarthBound]]" takes place in "199X". [[Mother3 It's sequel]] is even less helpful.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS1E2TheEndOfTheWorld "The End of the World"]] where Sol explodes from old age, destroying the Earth in the process, takes place in the year "5.5/Apple/26."
[[/folder]]

* WordOfGod states that the calendar saying that the year is [[http://www.avasdemon.com/pages.php?page=0015 3031]] in ''Webcomic/AvasDemon'' is not the BCE/CE calender we're familiar with.

* ''Disney/TheLionKing'' gives no indication of what time the story takes place. Which is part of why it is so appealing. It could be happening in 1607 or 100 years in the future.

Examples:

[[AC:{{Anime}}]]

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

* ''DodgeballATrueUnderdogStory'': WordOfGod has it that the movie was supposed to take place in the early 1990s, but the case of AnachronismStew including Peter renting ''Film/MonaLisaSmile'' on DVD, as well as digital cable being in existence would suggest otherwise; it pretty much looks as if it could have been set in the present day.
* Most of the time, ''The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking'' seems to be set around the 1940s (when the first books were written). However, the characters are shocked when a local man "invents" a flying machine and Pippi's sailing adventures with her father seem to be out of the 17th century.
* ''TenThousandBC'' appears to be set in the prehistoric times, with the main character encountering both a wooly mammoth and a saber tooth tiger. However, he ends up somewhere that appears to be ancient Egypt or at least Mesopotamia (an emperor is having a large pyramid built).

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:{{Television}}]]
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "The End of the World" where Sol explodes from old age, destroying the Earth in the process, takes place in the year "5.5/Apple/26."

[[AC:{{VideoGames}}]]

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

* Creator/HannaBarbera's series of ''TheLittleRascals'' is supposedly set in the late 1930s, but they have microcomputers and commercial television.

An ambiguous time period is where the series takes place at a certain time in the past or future and in the same [[ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway universe as ours except for the story elements added by the author]] but doesn't state anything specific. This is either because the time period is completely unmentioned, mentioned but elements of the story or WordOfGod state that the fiction uses a [[AlternateCalendar different calendar than ours.]]

Sometimes AnachronismStew will unintentionally [[PurelyAestheticEra (and sometimes intentionally)]] confuse viewers into wondering when the time period takes place in.

This can still happen in works that take place in a completely different universe as ours when there's an overarching timeline but it's very difficult to pinpoint where in that timeline the events currently being described take place in.

When the ambiguous time period is obviously not long ago than it's and example of PresentDayPast. This trope is the temporal version of WhereTheHellIsSpringfield. Contrast PeriodPiece and UnintentionalPeriodPiece.

[[AC:{{ComicBooks}}]]

* TheLionKing gives no indication of what time the story takes place. Which is part of why it is so appealing. It could be happening in 1607 or 100 years in the future.

* Most of the time, ''The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking'' seems to be set around the 1940s (when the first books were written). However, the characters are shocked when a local man "invents" a flying machine and Pippi's sailing adventures with her father seem to be out of the 1600s.
* ''TenThousandBC'' appears to be set in the prehistoric times, with the main character encountering both a wooly mammoth and a saber tooth tiger. However he ends up somewhere that appears to be ancient Egypt or at least Mesopotamia (an emperor is having a large pyramid built).

* Robert E. Hopward's ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' stories take place sometime between 20,000 B.C. and 9,500 B.C. Or as his short story "The Phoenix on the Sword" puts it, "Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas."

* The Doctor Who episode "The End of the World" where Sol explodes from old age, destroying the Earth in the process, takes place in the year "5.5/Apple/26."

* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' avoids specifying dates at which chapters occur (although the timeframes are much clearer). Logs in ScienceFiction chapter even go so far as to hide dates with [=Xs=] (although the "copyright" text in ''Captain Square'' minigame makes it clear it takes place no earlier than 22nd century).

* WordOfGod states that the calender saying that the year is [[http://www.avasdemon.com/pages.php?page=0015 3031]] in [[Webcomic/AvasDemon Ava's Demon]] is not the BCE/CE calender we're familiar with.

[[AC:{{WesternAnimation}}]]

* WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries (And by extension the DCAU) has tons of AnachronismStew and not enough dates [read: none at all]

An ambiguous time period is where the series takes place at a certain time in the past or future and in the same [[ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway universe as ours except for the story elements added by the author]] but doesn't state anything specific. This can be done a number of ways:
* Type 1: The time period goes completely unmentioned.
* Type 2: The time period is mentioned but some element of the story or WordOfGod states that the universe doesn't use the same calender as us.
* Type 3: Unintentionally caused by AnachronismStew which confuses a viewer into wondering what time it takes place in since the setting doesn't match history.
NeedsWikiMagicLove

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* WordOfGod states that the calender saying that the year is [[http://www.avasdemon.com/pages.php?page=0015 3031]] in [[Webcomic/AvasDemon Ava's Demon]] is not the BCE/CE calender we're familiar with.
[[/folder]]

An ambiguous time period is where the series takes place at a certain time in the past or future and in the same [[ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway universe except for the story elements added by the author]] but doesn't state anything specific. This can be done a number of ways:

* WordOfGod states that the calender saying that the year is 3031 in [[Webcomic/AvasDemon Ava's Demon]] is not the BCE/CE calender we're familiar with.

An ambiguous time period is where the series takes place at a certain time in the past or future and in the same [[ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway universe except in the story elements added by the author]] but doesn't state anything specific. This can be done a number of ways:

* WordOfGod states that the calender saying that the year is 3031 in [[Webcomic/AvasDemon Ava's Demon]] is not the BCE/CE calender we're familiar with.

NeedsWikiMagicLove

An ambiguous time period is where the series takes place at a certain time in the past or future and in a [[ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway universe except in the story elements added by the author]] but doesn't state anything specific. This can be done a number of ways:

* Type 3: Unintentionally caused by AnachronismStew which confuses a viewer into wondering what time it takes place in since the setting doesn't match history.