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The year 2025 might sound more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with each futuristic advancement – chiefly the broad integration of artificial intelligence – appearing dystopian, or possibly more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-backed anti-human technology would actually operate a bit better?) Didn't anyone sound the alarm regarding this?

The answer, at least regarding science fiction films from years ago (or occasionally recently) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are broadly applicable (global catastrophe) but specifically implausible (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will most likely bring down the primate species alongside us). Others of them are prescient; the rest just look like poor visual effects. But it's worth examining where various film-makers, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by now in the world's evolution. So let's take a look at some of the movies that have been set in 2026 over the years and determine if they contain any lessons to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Well, this doesn't bode well. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *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 inhabitants of Earth can establish a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – regarding plot and concerning garish film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually go down for two more decades in the future, so should we find a Martian gateway this year, we might have some time to avert true disaster. If we did discover a passageway to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether a certain tech billionaire would still be super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would immediately turn disheartened that the portal wasn't something he funded himself, enabling him to assert savior-like credit for mankind's journey into the stars. This precedes we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting transformations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a useful example for the reasons we allow Mars serve as a stretch-goal hope for mankind. Whether in John Carpenter's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wants to close that dubious red-planet property deal, maybe they ought to begin with first making the fictional depiction look good.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the strangest features of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the multiple world-threatening disasters, including a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are mostly not shown in the movies themselves; the movies have turned into a clock radio constantly set a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of Marvel stuff that various wikis helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated adventure *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so feel pretty unmoored from our sense of time. But the bad stuff is some of the worst Marvel has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're facing a whole lot of frustrating stagnation in 2026, along with the related narrative that actually, this confusing mess happening in front of us is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will likely turn out to be correct.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins nearer the present, starting its chronology approximately 2016. Thus, when a pathogen that devastates most of Earth’s people has done its damage, and simultaneously enhanced the intelligence of apes, 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 around the world and taking place around 2019, looks downright eerie in the aftermath of the real-world pandemic that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; if you can believe it, we’re now half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly impacted by the ongoing virus, was not wiped out, and technological infrastructure definitely has not been disabled. Yet this bleakest of the four modern *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a significant bummer to offer, suggesting that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as either, will unavoidably result in violent conflict, regardless of the work of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts don't represent the most. Right now, it feels difficult to argue with that, despite the fact that we ought to try.

Metropolis

Easily the best-known portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie nearing celebrating its centennial. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* is set in a futuristic city where wealthy industrialists preside over the skyscrapers as workers toil underground on the equipment that power the city. Affluent city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these massive social gaps when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an subterranean organizer who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a robot in her likeness, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot designed to imitate a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's a component inverted by reality in a future that in other ways appears to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where advanced machinery relies on traditional human toil, which seems like a perfect union of conservative disdain for “unskilled workers” and business zeal for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, 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 industrial production. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the have-nots is bridged with compassion; not so much with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates peaceful cohabitation; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems hopeful about the possibility