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The date 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 represents a leap forward, and it's where we find ourselves, with each futuristic advancement – primarily the widespread adoption of AI – seeming bleak, or possibly more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology might function more effectively?) Did no one warn us about this?

The response, particularly concerning science fiction films made long ago (or sometimes months ago) set in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but in detail far-fetched (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will almost certainly bring down the primate species alongside us). Some of them are prescient; others just look like bad green screen. But it's valuable to explore where different film-makers, from geniuses to journeymen, believed we'd be positioned by this time in our planet's evolution. So let's examine at some of the films that have been set in 2026 over the years and see if they contain any lessons to impart.

Doom

Well, this isn't promising. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that humanity discovers a portal to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – in terms of plot and in terms of over-the-top film versions of a FPS video game – doesn't really transpire for another 20 years later, so should we find a Martian gateway this year, we could gain a respite to avoid true disaster. If we did discover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether Elon Musk would remain super-psyched to dispatch people to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the portal was not a thing he personally paid for, allowing him to claim savior-like ownership for humanity's expansion to the cosmos. That's before we consider the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and resulting mutations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for why, exactly we allow Mars become a long-term hope for mankind. Whether in John Carpenter's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet rarely act as a symbol of optimism. If anyone wants to make that questionable red-planet real estate sale, maybe they ought to begin with first ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the strangest features of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the various global disasters, including a half-decade leap whose occurrences are largely undepicted in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a alarm clock perpetually set a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a large assortment of Marvel stuff that various wikis helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated adventure *The Marvels*, occur far away from Earth, and so feel quite detached from any concrete sense of time. But the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on these examples, we're in for a whole lot of annoying wheel-spinning in 2026, including the related narrative that actually, this nonsensical crap happening in front of us is crucial to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the actual world that claim will probably turn out to be correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the more distant 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. So by the time a pathogen that knocks out the majority of Earth’s human population has done its damage, and simultaneously boosted the intelligence of primates, it’s merely 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how swiftly this virus propagates around the world and set in 2019, appears profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the real-world pandemic that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; if you can believe it, we’re already six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though clearly impacted by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been wiped out, and our technology certainly hasn't been knocked out. Yet this most pessimistic of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (at least so far!) nonetheless contains a significant downer in store, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as either, will unavoidably lead to warfare, no matter the work of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ worst instincts, although those drives are not held by the majority. Right now, it seems difficult to dispute that, despite the fact that we probably should.

The Silent Classic

Easily the best-known depiction of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to celebrating its centennial. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists lord over the towers as workers toil below the surface on the equipment that keep everything running. Rich city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these enormous class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground organizer who advocates for a reconciliation of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a robot in her likeness, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a machine created to mimic a human does not serve as an instrument of the elite, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; 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 old-fashioned manual labor, which seems like a most logical fusion of conservative contempt for “the working class” and business zeal for an tech boom. It hasn't yet come to pass, but it's simple to imagine a somewhat less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a return to industrial production. The more complex, less plausible accomplishment is the ending of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the poor is spanned with love; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the chance