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The date 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Maybe it's the sound of the letter "f" in "five". However 2026 represents one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with each science-fiction-style development – chiefly the broad integration of artificial intelligence – seeming dystopian, or possibly more grim. (It often seems like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed dehumanizing technology might function a bit better?) Did no one warn us about this?

The response, particularly regarding our sci-fi movies made long ago (or sometimes recently) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. Some of these prophecies are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but in detail far-fetched (if humanity is inevitably ravaged, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population alongside us). Others of them are prescient; others just look like poor green screen. But it's worth examining where different directors, from geniuses to journeymen, believed we'd be positioned by now in the world's evolution. 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 impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Well, this isn't promising. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity discovers a portal to an ancient city on Mars, where the people of Earth can set up a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – in terms of plot and in terms of garish film versions of a FPS video game – doesn't really go down for another 20 years later, so should we find a Martian gateway now, we might have some time to avoid true disaster. Were we to uncover a portal to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether Elon Musk would still be extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would immediately turn disheartened that the portal wasn't something he funded himself, enabling him to claim savior-like credit for humanity's expansion into the stars. This precedes we consider the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and subsequent transformations into monstrous beings. (Once more, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for the reasons we let Mars become a stretch-goal aspiration for humanity. Be it in John Carpenter's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely act as a beacon of optimism. Should someone wants to close that dubious Martian real estate sale, perhaps they should start with at least making the fictional depiction appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the strangest features of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the multiple global disasters, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are mostly not shown in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a alarm clock constantly running a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a large assortment of MCU content that fan sites clarify to be set in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so seem quite detached from any concrete sense of time. But the bad stuff is among the weakest Marvel has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call debacle 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 accompanying narrative that actually, this nonsensical crap unfolding before our eyes is crucial to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the actual world that assertion will probably turn out to be accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

The majority of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, starting its timeline approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that devastates most of Earth’s human population has run its course, and also enhanced the intelligence of apes, it’s merely 2026, with additional human indignities (and victories for apes) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this contagion propagates globally and taking place in 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the real-world pandemic that would begin in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; astonishingly, we’re already six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly wounded by the ongoing virus, was not wiped out, and technological infrastructure definitely hasn't been knocked out. But this bleakest of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (at least so far!) nonetheless contains a substantial bummer in store, suggesting that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as either, will inevitably lead to warfare, no matter the work of the best-intentioned among us. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts are not held by the most. Currently, it seems difficult to dispute that, despite the fact that we ought to try.

Metropolis

By far the best-known portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie nearing celebrating its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists preside over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly below the surface on the machines that power the city. Rich city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these massive social gaps when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground organizer who advocates for a reconciliation of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans creates a automaton in her likeness, hoping to tear the whole of Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a machine designed to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the elite, but someone who wants to see them destroyed; it's one element inverted by reality in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise seems to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where advanced machinery depends on traditional manual labor, which seems like a perfect fusion of rightwing contempt for “the working class” and corporate enthusiasm for an tech boom. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to picture a slightly more utilitarian version of Lang’s city expanding out with the prospect of a resurgence to manufacturing. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the haves and the have-nots is bridged with love; rather than with concrete reforms. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the possibility