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The date 2025 might sound more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies a leap forward, and it's where we currently stand, with every science-fiction-style advancement – chiefly the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – appearing dystopian, or possibly even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed dehumanizing technology would actually function more effectively?) Didn't anyone warn us about this?

The answer, at least regarding our sci-fi movies made long ago (or sometimes recently) set in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of those warnings are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but in detail far-fetched (when mankind is ultimately ravaged, we will most likely take the primate species with us). Some of them are visionary; others just resemble poor visual effects. But it's worth examining where different film-makers, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by now in the world'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 teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Well, 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 discovers a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to establish a scientific outpost. Currently, the bad stuff – in terms of plot and concerning garish film versions of a first-person-shooter video game – doesn't really go down for another 20 years in the future, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars this year, we might have some time to avert true disaster. Were we to uncover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's truly hard to tell whether Elon Musk would remain 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 messianic credit for humanity's expansion to the cosmos. This precedes we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting transformations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for the reasons we let Mars become a stretch-goal aspiration for mankind. Whether in the director's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet doesn't tend to serve as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wishes to make that questionable Martian real estate sale, maybe they ought to begin with at least ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

A of the strangest features of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the multiple world-threatening cataclysms, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are mostly not shown in the films themselves; the films have become like a alarm clock constantly running a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. So there's a large assortment of MCU content that various wikis helpfully explain to be set in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated adventure *The Marvels*, take place distant from Earth, and so feel quite detached from our sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst the studio has ever produced: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by this stuff, we're in for a whole lot of annoying wheel-spinning in 2026, including the accompanying spin that in truth, this nonsensical crap happening before our eyes is crucial to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the real world that claim will probably prove accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the more distant future of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, starting its chronology approximately 2016. So by the time a virus that devastates the majority of Earth’s human population has run its course, and simultaneously enhanced the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s only 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) to come. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this virus spreads globally and set in 2019, looks downright eerie in the aftermath of the real-world pandemic that would begin in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re already six years out from the spread of Covid-19, and society, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been annihilated, and technological infrastructure certainly has not been disabled. But this bleakest of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a significant downer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will unavoidably result in violent conflict, regardless of the work of the best-intentioned among us. We’re subject to the whims of those who exploit others’ worst instincts, even if those drives are not held by the majority. Currently, it seems difficult to dispute that, despite the fact that we probably should.

Metropolis

By far the best-known depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie close to marking its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly below the surface on the machines that power the city. Rich surface resident Freder, son of the city’s master, has his eyes opened 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 scientist with darker plans creates a automaton in her image, aiming to bring the whole of Metropolis down in flames. Here, a machine designed to mimic a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who wants to witness their downfall; it's one element flipped by reality in a future that in other ways appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology relies on traditional human toil, which seems like a perfect union of conservative disdain for “unskilled workers” and corporate zeal for an AI bubble. It has not yet come to pass, but it's easy to picture a somewhat less stylish-looking iteration of Lang’s city expanding out with the prospect of a return to manufacturing. The trickier, harder-to-imagine feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is bridged with love; rather than with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the possibility