Posted by River Spirit on 10.23.2017, 09:01 PM:
When does Castle in the Sky take place
When does Castle in the Sky take place? (A Theory)
Judging by the automobiles it seems obvious it's the 1910s or 1920s. But the idea that there are these massive airships is evidence that technology has evolved much, much farther than a simple Ford Model T.
There are theories that it does take place in the 1910s, but in an alternate universe where mankind had discovered aetherium and all that long ago. However, my theory is that the film takes place in this "universe", but a thousand years from now. The prologue (during the opening credits) explains that the people of Earth were experiencing a tremendous industrial revolution and technology was evolving at an incredible pace, culminating in the discovery and mining of aetherium. This crucial discovery, in accordance with the theory, would take place in the very near future (relative to today). As their aeronautical acumen developed, they found they could implement aetherium into their flying machines.
You can see the progression of these airships as time goes by. What starts out as little more than modified airplanes becomes enormous structures semi-dependent on propellers. Eventually, motors and engines are abandoned completely as the ships become entire landmasses dependent solely on the energy of aetherium. It's implied that thousands of people, perhaps entire populations, then moved as permanent residents onto these floating mountains and castles. And then, seemingly as a reminder that "man came from this earth and to the earth he must return", an apocalyptic hurricane knocks them all out of the sky and crashing to the earth. All except one (Laputa), which narrowly escaped destruction, but was now endlessly trapped within the hurricane which destroyed all the others. It's likely that all humans living on Laputa at that time abandoned it; either dying during the storm, or returning to the ground to help their friends rebuild civilization.
Now, once on the ground, the survivors would find that they had no idea how to adapt or live as ground dwellers. Essentially, the world's developmental timeline would then "reset" as people ventured to learn again what they learned in the past. But after the tragedy that happened with their floating islands, they promised to never again abuse the power of aetherium. Instead, they turned their attention to life on the surface, and civilization developed accordingly.
However, while the majority of the population agreed to forsake flying machines, some were still fascinated with the concept and used some of the existing technology in the wrecked castles to begin making advances in that direction. Hence, air travel gained a head start in the developmental race between the land and sky engineers. This is why, during the course of the movie, Pazu's mining town appeared markedly behind-the-times compared to Muska's airship.
I think it's reasonable to say the duration of time between the discovery of aetherium and the catastrophic hurricane was roughly 300 years. It's said in the film that Laputa has been abandoned for 700 years. So, you could say the movie proper takes place 1000 years in the future.
Sorry if the theory goes sort of off topic in some spots. I also wanted to work in my analysis of the opening credits sequence. I know there's probably a few holes in the theory, but it's one I've had for a long time and just thought I'd share. 
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