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The date 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we currently stand, with each science-fiction-style development – primarily the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – appearing dystopian, or perhaps even worse. (It often seems like in a proper dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored anti-human technology would actually operate more effectively?) Did no one sound the alarm regarding this?

The response, at least regarding science fiction films from years ago (or sometimes recently) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are broadly applicable (worldwide disaster) but in detail far-fetched (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will most likely bring down the primate species alongside us). Others of them are prescient; the rest just resemble bad visual effects. Yet it remains valuable to explore where various directors, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be situated by now in our planet's evolution. Therefore, we shall examine a selection of the films that have been set in 2026 throughout cinematic history and determine if they contain any lessons to impart.

Doom

Well, this doesn't bode well. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that humanity discovers a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can set up a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – in terms of narrative and in terms of garish cinematic imitations of a FPS video game – doesn't really transpire for another 20 years later, so even if we find a Martian gateway this year, we might have a respite to avert catastrophe. If we did uncover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether a certain tech billionaire 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 assert savior-like credit for humanity's expansion into the stars. This precedes we consider the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and resulting mutations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for why, exactly we allow Mars become a long-term aspiration for mankind. Whether in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet rarely serve as a beacon of hope. Should someone wants to make that questionable red-planet property deal, maybe they should start with first ensuring the fictional depiction look good.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the multiple world-threatening disasters, including a five-year time-jump whose events are largely not shown in the movies themselves; the films have become like a alarm clock constantly set a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's annual increments. So there's a large assortment of Marvel stuff that fan sites 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 distant from Earth, and so feel pretty detached from any concrete sense of time. But the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on this stuff, we're in for a great deal of annoying stagnation in 2026, along with the accompanying narrative that in truth, this confusing mess happening in front of us is crucial to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the real world that claim will likely turn out to be correct.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the further-flung future of Earth, but the modern series that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts closer to home, initiating its timeline around 2016. Thus, when a virus that knocks out most of Earth’s people has run its course, and simultaneously enhanced the cognitive abilities of apes, it’s only 2026, with additional human indignities (and victories for apes) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this virus propagates globally and taking place in 2019, looks downright eerie in the aftermath of the real-world pandemic that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* looks less literal; astonishingly, 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 wiped out, and technological infrastructure certainly hasn't been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a substantial downer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will inevitably result in warfare, no matter the efforts of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re subject to the whims of those who appeal to others’ baser impulses, even if those drives don't represent the most. Right now, it seems hard to dispute that, even though we probably should.

Metropolis

Easily the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie close to celebrating its 100th anniversary. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a futuristic city where wealthy industrialists lord over the towers as workers toil underground on the equipment that keep everything running. Affluent city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these massive social gaps when he falls for Maria, an underground organizer who preaches a reconciliation of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with more radical plans creates a automaton in her image, hoping to tear the entire Metropolis to ruin. Here, a robot created to mimic 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 appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where technology relies on traditional manual labor, which appears as a perfect union of conservative contempt for “unskilled workers” and business enthusiasm for an tech boom. It has not 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 manufacturing. The trickier, less plausible feat is the ending of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the poor is bridged with compassion; rather than with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the possibility