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The year 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Maybe it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". However 2026 represents one step beyond, and it's where we currently stand, with each science-fiction-style development – chiefly the widespread adoption of AI – appearing dystopian, or possibly more grim. (It often seems like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-backed anti-human technology would actually operate more effectively?) Didn't anyone warn us regarding this?

The answer, at least regarding science fiction films made long ago (or occasionally recently) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are broadly applicable (global catastrophe) but in detail far-fetched (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will most likely take the primate species with us). Some of them are prescient; others just look like poor green screen. But it's worth examining where various directors, from geniuses to journeymen, believed we'd be situated by this time in our planet's development. So let's examine a selection of the movies that have been set in 2026 throughout cinematic history and determine if they contain any lessons to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that humanity finds a portal to an ancient city on Mars, where the people of Earth are able to establish a scientific outpost. Now, the bad stuff – in terms of plot and in terms of garish film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for another 20 years in the future, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars now, we could gain a respite to avoid true disaster. If we did uncover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether a certain tech billionaire would still be extremely excited to dispatch people to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the discovery was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to assert messianic ownership for humanity's journey to the cosmos. That's before we consider the collection of Martian chromosomes and resulting mutations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is nearer 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars become a stretch-goal hope for mankind. Be it in John Carpenter's chintzy genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet doesn't tend to act as a beacon of hope. Should someone wishes to make that dubious Martian real estate sale, perhaps they should start with first ensuring the fantasy version look good.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the strangest features of the present MCU is the way it handles the various world-threatening disasters, including a half-decade leap whose events are largely not shown in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a clock radio perpetually set a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of MCU content that various wikis clarify to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so feel pretty unmoored from any concrete sense of time. But the poorer material is among the weakest the studio has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by this stuff, we're in for a whole lot of frustrating stagnation in 2026, along with the related spin that actually, this nonsensical crap unfolding before our eyes is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the real world that claim will probably prove correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, starting its timeline approximately 2016. So by the time a virus that devastates most of Earth’s human population has run its course, and also boosted the intelligence of apes, it’s only 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this contagion spreads globally and set in 2019, appears profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the actual pandemic that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems more abstract; astonishingly, we’re now six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though obviously impacted by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been annihilated, and our technology certainly hasn't been disabled. Yet this bleakest of the four modern *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a substantial downer in store, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as each, will inevitably lead to violent conflict, no matter the work of the most well-meaning among us. We’re subject to the whims of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts are not held by the majority. Right now, it feels hard to dispute that, even though we probably should.

The Silent Classic

By far the best-known depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing marking its 100th anniversary. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists lord over the towers as laborers work tirelessly underground on the machines that keep everything running. Rich city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these enormous social gaps when he falls for Maria, an subterranean activist who advocates for a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans builds a automaton in her image, aiming to tear the entire Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a machine created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's one element flipped by reality in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology relies on traditional human toil, which seems like a perfect fusion of conservative contempt for “the working class” and corporate zeal for an tech boom. It has not yet materialized, but it's easy to imagine a somewhat more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city growing with the prospect of a return to industrial production. The more complex, harder-to-imagine accomplishment is the ending of the film, where the chasm between the wealthy and the have-nots is bridged with compassion; not so much with concrete reforms. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the chance