You were probably too busy dancing, jiving, and having the time of your life during Mamma
Mia 2 to notice, but if you did try to make sense of Mamma Mia's timeline, it might have
made your head spin!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here, and in this video I'm going to explain five
crazy things about Mamma Mia's timeline which make it all really rather confusing!
And I'll also be announcing the winners of my Here We Go Again giveaway!
The wonderful world of Mamma Mia is not only full of beautiful sparking blue seas, fabulously
fun spontaneous song-and-dance routines, and opportunities to live rent-free if you happen
to help the right horse, but it also seems that they've managed to perfect the art of
technological time travel!
We see Sophie and Bill's mother using some pretty up-to-date iPhones and some rather
recent tablet models appear in Harry's Tokyo meeting, but Mamma Mia 2 isn't actually set
now, which means that tech-wise, the Mamma Mia universe is well ahead of its time!
OK, I'm going to run through Mamma Mia's timeline to show you what I mean.
When Mamma Mia was released in 2008, the date the story was set in was rather vague, with
little to tie it down to a particular year.
But Here We Go Again changed that, giving us with some specific dates for movie detectives
to create a timeline of the events in both films.
Lily James' prequel story reveals that Donna graduated in 1979, after which she hooked
up with Sophie's three potential fathers during the summer after graduation, which lines up
roughly with the months mentioned in Donna's diary in the first film.
So, Donna became pregnant with Sophie during the summer of 1979 which, allowing nine months
for the pregnancy, means Sophie was born in 1980.
We know that in the first film Sophie is 20 years old.
"If she were more like me, she wouldn't be getting married at 20."
So, given Sophie was born in 1980, the first film must have been set in the year 2000.
As for Here We Go Again, that's set five years after the original movie in 2005.
We know that because when Ruby says she wants to "commit to being a grandmother", Sophie
accuses her of being 25 years too late.
And Amanda Seyfried confirmed this five-year gap between the stories during press for the
film.
The problem with the tech in Mamma Mia 2 is that it doesn't match this timeline.
The first iPhones weren't released until 2007, and the characters in the movie are actually
using pretty up-to-date ones, with Sophie's iPhone looking like it's probably a model
from around 2013 onwards.
While the 2-in-1 laptop-tablet used by the execs in Harry's meeting is from a range that
was only introduced in 2013.
All of which means that while the Greek island of Kalokairi isn't exactly Europe's answer
to Wakanda, somehow they've still managed to nab themselves some hi-tech gadgets that
weren't even available at the time the movie's set!
Another timeline problem pops up with Donna's graduation in 1979 at New College, Oxford
where, according to Lily James, the idea was that Donna was the first ever female valedictorian.
But while this scene certainly gets 10 out of 10 for fun, it gets far fewer points for
accuracy.
The reason being that, while New College, Oxford was founded in 1379, they didn't admit
the first female undergraduates until 1979.
And as Oxford's academic year starts in October, it would have been impossible for Donna to
graduate in the summer of 1979 as that would have been before any women undergraduates
had ever been admitted to New College.
On top of that, valedictorian speeches and honours are typically a North American tradition
and not something that happened previously at Oxford.
I think the filmmakers decided to go with a valedictorian speech for Donna as they needed
an excuse for her to get up on stage and also wanted to show her as a trailblazer and the
kind of person who shattered conventions.
Writer-director Ol Parker told EW that to do that they needed to put Donna "in the stuffiest
possible surrounding and then have her shake that up."
Parker chose Oxford as he says it was "the most fabulously pompous place [they] could
find.
[In a good way.]
Fabulously learned and impressive.
[So,] It was all the funnier for Lily to rip off her costume and go for it."
And Donna's age when she graduates in 1979 creates another issue with the timeline as
she was probably several years too young.
Andy Garcia, who plays Fernando Cienfuegos, has said his character could well be Donna's
father and the movie seems to imply it was Fernando's love affair with Ruby which led
to Ruby becoming pregnant with Donna.
In the film, Cienfuegos reveals that his romance with Ruby took place in 1959 and, assuming
that's when Donna was conceived, she would have been born in late 1959 or 1960.
That would make Donna around 18 to 19 years old at the time of her graduation in summer
1979.
As undergraduate courses in Oxford are typically three to four years long, Donna must have
started college when she was only around 15 or so years old.
Now, it's not unheard of for child prodigies to go to college at a young age, but as much
as we all love Donna, that's never been part of her story.
Also, as absolutely loads of you have pointed out, when it comes to Donna's best friends,
Tanya and Rosie, the timeline is rather fuzzy about who knew who, what and when.
In the first film, it's clearly news to Tanya and Rosie that anyone other than Sam could
have been Sophie's dad.
"Remember how I said it was Sam?"
"Sam the architect, who had to go home to get married?"
"I'm not sure that it was him, because there were two other guys around the same time."
"Donna Sheridan.
You shady lady."
"Why didn't you tell us?"
And when Tanya and Rosie see Bill in the original film, we don't get any sense they've ever
met before.
Yet in Here We Go Again, we learn they already met Bill when they were young and they even
encouraged Donna to get over Sam with him.
What's more, Rosie even had a big crush on young Bill!
All of which sounds like the kind of things you might remember when they crop up later!
But maybe all that Greek sun and ouzo simply went to their heads!
And there's also the puzzling case of Harry's missing guitar and switched around diary dates,
and if you'd like to know more about that, check out my video in the card here or video
description below.
We already know that technology can travel back from the future in the Mamma Mia universe,
so it shouldn't be a surprise that human beings can also time travel in this absolutely fabulous
world!
Thanks to eagle-eyed Twitter user Tom Zohar, we now know that this dancing waiter travelled
from 1979 to 2005 without ever looking a single year older, though he did have time for a
quick shave!
The dancer in question is Justin Thomas who showed up in both the Waterloo routine in
Paris with young Donna and Harry and then again over 25 years later when Cher made her
grand entrance on the island.
So, either Cher really can turn back time or the dancer has a portrait of himself hidden
away like Dorian Gray.
And here's a little bonus timeline craziness for you.
Given the sequel is set in 2005, there's no way that the grand reopening party for the
Hotel Bella Donna could have been on Saturday July 7th, which is the date we see on Sophie's
invites, because, in 2005, July 7th was a Thursday!
Now, obviously, when they shot the first film, they never planned on making another one,
so they didn't worry about how story decisions they made might impact a sequel.
And as events in the Mamma Mia! stage musical took place in 1999, the year the show opened
in the West End, that's likely where the filmmakers got inspiration for their timeline.
For me, there's far too much fun to be had watching both the Mamma Mia movies for these
timeline issues to get in the way.
After all, the Mamma-Mia-verse is all about the joy and the music!
So, as Cher says in the sequel, 'let's concentrate on the here and now."
And, on that note, if you'd like to check out 10 amazing details in Mamma Mia 2 that
will make you love the sequel even more, then tap on the card or the link in the video description
or at the end of this video.
Now, what did you think of Mamma Mia's timeline issues and did you spot any other inconsistencies
in the movies?
Congratulations to all the winners of my Here We Go Again merch giveaway.
Please contact me, or check your email if you registered it, for details on how to receive
the prize.
Tap left, to watch five crucial differences between the two Mamma Mia movies, or tap right
for another fun Mamma Mia video.
Thanks for watching and see ya next time.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!