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The year 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the sound of the letter "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies one step beyond, and it's where we currently stand, with each futuristic advancement – primarily the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – seeming bleak, or perhaps more grim. (It often seems like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed dehumanizing technology might function more effectively?) Did no one warn us about this?

The response, at least concerning science fiction films from years ago (or occasionally recently) set in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but specifically far-fetched (when mankind is inevitably decimated, we will most likely take the ape population with us). Some of them are visionary; others just look like poor green screen. But it's valuable to explore where different film-makers, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be positioned by this time in the world's development. Therefore, we shall examine a selection of the films that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and see if they have anything to teach us.

Doom

Well, this isn't promising. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind finds a portal to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – regarding plot and in terms of over-the-top cinematic imitations of a first-person-shooter video game – does not actually transpire for two more decades in the future, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars now, we could gain some time to avoid catastrophe. Were we to uncover a portal to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether a certain tech billionaire would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the discovery was not a thing he funded himself, allowing him to assert messianic ownership for humanity's journey to the cosmos. That's before we even get to the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and subsequent mutations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for why, exactly we let Mars become a long-term hope for humanity. Be it in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely serve as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wishes to make that questionable red-planet property deal, perhaps they should start with first making the fictional depiction look good.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

A of the goofiest quirks of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the various global disasters, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose events are mostly not shown in the films themselves; the films have become like a alarm clock constantly running a few minutes fast – except with minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a large assortment of Marvel stuff that fan sites helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, occur far away from Earth, and so seem quite unmoored from our sense of time. However the bad stuff is among the weakest the studio has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on this stuff, we're facing a great deal of frustrating wheel-spinning in 2026, including the related narrative that actually, this nonsensical crap unfolding before our eyes is crucial to future events. More troublingly, in the real world that assertion will likely turn out to be accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is set in the further-flung future of Earth, but the new trilogy that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, initiating its timeline approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that knocks out most of Earth’s people has done its damage, and simultaneously boosted the intelligence of apes, it’s only 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how rapidly this virus spreads globally and set in 2019, looks downright eerie in the wake of the real-world pandemic that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems more abstract; astonishingly, we’re already half a decade from the spread of Covid-19, and humanity, though obviously impacted by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been wiped out, and technological infrastructure definitely hasn't been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial downer in store, suggesting that human and/or ape nature, however one defines each, will inevitably result in violent conflict, regardless of the work of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re subject to the whims of those who exploit others’ worst instincts, although those instincts don't represent the most. Currently, it feels hard to argue with that, even though we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

Easily the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to celebrating its centennial. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen lord over the skyscrapers as laborers toil below the surface on the machines that keep everything running. Rich city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his perspective changed to these enormous social gaps when he falls for Maria, an underground organizer who preaches a coming together of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans builds a robot in her likeness, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a machine designed to mimic a human isn't a tool of the elite, but an entity who wants to see them destroyed; it's one element inverted by the modern world in a future that in other ways seems to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery relies on old-fashioned manual labor, which seems like a perfect union of rightwing contempt for “the working class” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. 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 resurgence to manufacturing. The trickier, harder-to-imagine accomplishment is the ending of the film, where the chasm between the wealthy and the have-nots is spanned with love; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the chance