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The date 2025 might sound more futuristic. Perhaps it's the sound of the letter "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with each science-fiction-style development – primarily the broad integration of AI – seeming dystopian, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology would actually operate more effectively?) Didn't anyone sound the alarm regarding this?

The response, at least concerning science fiction films made long ago (or sometimes recently) set in 2026, is a mixed bag. Some of these prophecies are broadly applicable (worldwide disaster) but in detail implausible (if humanity is inevitably ravaged, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population with us). Others of them are prescient; the rest just look like bad green screen. But it's valuable to explore where different directors, from geniuses to journeymen, believed we'd be positioned by now in the world's evolution. So let's 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 isn't promising. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity finds a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to establish a scientific outpost. Currently, the negative events – regarding plot and concerning garish film versions of a first-person-shooter video game – doesn't really go down for two more decades in the future, so should we do discover a portal to Mars now, 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 remain super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the discovery wasn't something he personally paid for, allowing him to assert savior-like credit for humanity's expansion into the stars. That's before we even get to 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 (if nothing else) a good test case for why, exactly we allow Mars serve as a long-term hope for humanity. Be it in the director's chintzy genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely act as a symbol of optimism. If anyone wants to make that dubious Martian real estate sale, maybe they should start with first ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the goofiest quirks of the current MCU is how to account for the various global 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 years. So there's a large assortment of Marvel stuff that various wikis clarify to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so feel pretty detached from our sense of time. However the bad stuff is among the weakest Marvel has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on these examples, we're facing a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the related narrative that actually, this nonsensical crap happening before our eyes is crucial to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the real world that claim will likely prove accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the further-flung future of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, initiating its timeline approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that devastates the majority of Earth’s people has run its course, and also boosted the intelligence of apes, it’s merely 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how rapidly this virus propagates globally and set in 2019, appears 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 now half a decade from the spread of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, was not wiped out, and technological infrastructure definitely has not been disabled. Yet this bleakest of the quartet of modern *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial downer 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 exploit others’ worst instincts, although those drives are not held by the majority. Right now, it feels hard to argue with that, even though we probably should.

Metropolis

Easily the best-known portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing celebrating its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists preside over the skyscrapers as laborers work tirelessly below the surface on the machines that keep everything running. Rich city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his eyes opened to these massive social gaps when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground activist who advocates for a reconciliation of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with darker plans creates a robot in her image, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis to ruin. Here, a robot created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the elite, but someone who wants to see them destroyed; it's a component flipped by the modern world in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise appears to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery depends on old-fashioned manual labor, which seems like a perfect fusion of rightwing contempt for “unskilled workers” and corporate enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet come to pass, but it's easy to imagine a somewhat more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a return to industrial production. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the haves and the have-nots is spanned with compassion; not so much with concrete reforms. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it seems hopeful about the chance