Muppets Most Wanted: Alt History?

[Natty]

While this feels like a bit of a stretch in general I though this was too strange/funny not to really mention.

As surreal as this plot synopsis might seem, the basic premise of this movie is that Kermit the Frog is framed by an international criminal and sent to a Siberian GULAG in his stead while being impersonated by said criminal in the Muppets as they go on a worldwide revival tour. I admit the actual reasoning behind this is likely that the writers thought 'GULAG = Russia', I find the much funnier implication is that the Muppets Universe is in fact an alternate history one where the Soviet Union still exists.

What details can we ascertain about this universe, though?

• Due to the presence of Siberian GULAG and the majority of the staff at the Gulag wearing distinctly 'Soviet' uniforms, including the presence of a Hammer and Sickle on a lot of uniforms, it can be assumed that the soviet Union still exists in some capacity or the Russian Federation exists under radically different circumstances
• The presence of a 'unified Germany' (both on a map at an Interpol place and implied through Kermit's easy travel through various areas of berlin) implies that the German Unification still occurred as it did in OTL.
• In the 'Interpol' map placed in the background, some differences in map can already be spotted from OTL (Including both Corsica and Sardinia being owned by Italy, and Kaliningrad being placed as it's own thing separate from Russia and Germany)
• It appears the EU still exists, being directly mentioned by name.

 

[BrockSampson]

More than that. It looks like there are two Russian states by the look of the right edge of the map.

 

[Natty]

More than that. It looks like there are two Russian states by the look of the right edge of the map.

I thought that was just the border with Kazakhstan. Why the Caspian Sea seems to the colored a different color than the rest of the water is beyond me.

 

[BrockSampson]

I thought that was just the border with Kazakhstan. Why the Caspian Sea seems to the colored a different color than the rest of the water is beyond me.

That border goes really far north which is why I think that it’s a different Russian state.

 

[Codae]

What details can we ascertain about this universe, though?

• In the 'Interpol' map placed in the background, some differences in map can already be spotted from OTL (Including both Corsica and Sardinia being owned by Italy, and Kaliningrad being placed as it's own thing separate from Russia and Germany)

It looks like both Switzerland and Austria are French-speaking ITTL.

 

[B_Munro]

It might be that it's a map of Europe, so non-European Russia gets a different color (note the African and Asian countries are colored differently, being dark grey or brown while European countries are more varied in coloration and brighter)