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The date 2025 could appear more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 represents one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with every futuristic development – primarily the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – appearing dystopian, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed dehumanizing technology would actually operate more effectively?) Did no one warn us about this?

The response, at least concerning science fiction films from years ago (or occasionally recently) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but in detail implausible (if humanity is inevitably decimated, we will most likely bring down the ape population alongside us). Some of them are prescient; the rest just look like bad visual effects. Yet it remains worth examining where different film-makers, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be situated by now in our planet's evolution. So let's take a look at some of the movies that have been set in 2026 throughout cinematic history and determine if they contain any lessons to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this doesn't bode well. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was recently celebrated by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind finds a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can establish a research facility. Currently, the negative events – regarding narrative and concerning garish cinematic imitations of a first-person-shooter video game – does not actually transpire for another 20 years later, so should we do discover a portal to Mars this year, we could gain some time to avoid true disaster. If we did uncover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether Elon Musk would still be super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would immediately turn dejected that the portal wasn't something he funded himself, enabling him to claim savior-like credit for humanity's expansion to the cosmos. This precedes we even get to the collection of Martian chromosomes and resulting transformations into monstrous beings. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for why, exactly we let Mars become a stretch-goal hope for mankind. Be it in John Carpenter's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely serve as a beacon of hope. If anyone wishes to make that questionable red-planet real estate sale, maybe they should start with first making the fictional depiction appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the goofiest quirks of the present MCU is how to account for the multiple global cataclysms, including a half-decade leap whose events are mostly not shown in the movies themselves; the films have turned into a clock radio perpetually set a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of MCU content that fan sites clarify to be taking place in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated adventure *The Marvels*, take place distant from Earth, and so feel pretty unmoored from any concrete sense of time. However the poorer material is some of the worst the studio has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're facing a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, along with the related narrative that in truth, this confusing mess unfolding before our eyes is crucial to future events. Even worse, in the actual world that assertion will probably prove correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, initiating its chronology around 2016. Thus, when a virus that knocks out most of Earth’s human population has run its course, and also enhanced the intelligence of apes, it’s only 2026, with further human indignities (and victories for apes) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this contagion propagates around the world and taking place around 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the wake of the actual global health crisis that would begin in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks less literal; if you can believe it, we’re already six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been annihilated, and our technology definitely hasn't been knocked out. Yet this bleakest of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial bummer in store, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as either, will inevitably result in warfare, no matter the work of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re subject to the whims of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, even if those instincts don't represent the majority. Right now, it seems difficult to argue with that, even though we ought to try.

Metropolis

By far the most prominent depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie close to celebrating its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a futuristic city where rich businessmen lord over the skyscrapers as laborers toil below the surface on the machines that keep everything running. Affluent city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these massive class divisions when he falls for Maria, an underground activist who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with more radical plans creates a robot in her image, hoping to bring the whole of Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot created to imitate a human isn't a tool of the elite, but someone who wants to witness their downfall; it's a component flipped by the modern world in a future that otherwise appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery depends on old-fashioned human toil, which seems like a perfect union of conservative contempt for “the working class” and business enthusiasm for an tech boom. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to imagine a slightly more utilitarian version of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a resurgence to manufacturing. The more complex, harder-to-imagine feat is the ending of the film, where the chasm between the haves and the poor is bridged with love; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the possibility