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The year 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we currently stand, with every futuristic advancement – primarily the broad integration of artificial intelligence – seeming bleak, or perhaps even worse. (It often seems like in a proper dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-backed anti-human technology would actually function a bit better?) Didn't anyone warn us about this?

The response, at least concerning science fiction films from years ago (or occasionally months ago) set in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of these prophecies are broadly applicable (worldwide disaster) but specifically far-fetched (if humanity is inevitably decimated, we will almost certainly bring down the primate species alongside us). Some of them are prescient; the rest just resemble poor green screen. Yet it remains worth examining where different film-makers, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by now in the world's development. Therefore, we shall examine at some of the films that have been set in 2026 over the years and determine if they contain any lessons to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this doesn't bode well. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the people of Earth are able to establish a research facility. Now, the negative events – regarding plot and in terms of garish film versions of a first-person-shooter video game – does not actually go down for two more decades in the future, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars this year, we might have a respite to avoid true disaster. Were we to discover a portal to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether Elon Musk would still be extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would immediately turn dejected that the portal wasn't something he funded himself, allowing him to assert messianic ownership for mankind's expansion into the stars. That's before we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and subsequent transformations into monstrous beings. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a useful example for why, exactly we let Mars become a long-term aspiration for mankind. Whether in the director's chintzy genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wishes to make that dubious red-planet real estate sale, perhaps they should start with at least ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

A of the strangest features of the current MCU is the way it handles the multiple global disasters, including a half-decade leap whose events are mostly undepicted in the films themselves; the movies have become like a clock radio constantly running a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's annual increments. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch 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 underappreciated adventure *The Marvels*, occur far away from Earth, and so seem quite unmoored from any concrete sense of time. However the bad stuff is some of the worst Marvel has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce 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 before our eyes is crucial to future events. More troublingly, in the real world that assertion will likely prove accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins nearer the present, starting its timeline around 2016. So by the time a virus that devastates most of Earth’s people has run its course, and simultaneously enhanced the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s merely 2026, with further human indignities (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this contagion spreads globally and set 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 spread of Covid-19, and humanity, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, was not annihilated, and technological infrastructure definitely has not been disabled. But this bleakest of the quartet of modern *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a substantial downer to offer, implying that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as each, will inevitably result in violent conflict, no matter the work of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, although those drives don't represent the majority. Right now, it seems difficult to dispute that, even though we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

Easily the best-known depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing 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 equipment that power the city. Affluent city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these massive class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an subterranean organizer who advocates for a reconciliation of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a robot in her image, hoping to tear the whole of Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a machine created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's a component flipped by the modern world in a future that in other ways appears to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where advanced machinery depends on traditional manual labor, which seems like a perfect union of conservative disdain for “the working class” and corporate enthusiasm for an tech boom. It has not yet come to pass, but it's easy to imagine a slightly more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city growing with the prospect of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, harder-to-imagine accomplishment is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the wealthy and the poor is bridged with compassion; not so much with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the possibility