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The year 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the sound of the letter "f" in "five". However 2026 represents a leap forward, and it's where we currently stand, with every futuristic development – primarily the widespread adoption of AI – appearing bleak, or possibly even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed dehumanizing technology might function more effectively?) Didn't anyone sound the alarm about this?

The response, particularly concerning science fiction films made long ago (or occasionally months ago) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of those warnings are broadly applicable (global catastrophe) but in detail far-fetched (if humanity is ultimately decimated, we will almost certainly take the ape population with us). Others of them are prescient; others just resemble poor green screen. But it's valuable to explore where different film-makers, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be positioned by now in our planet's development. So let's examine at some of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they contain any lessons to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Well, this isn't promising. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity finds a portal to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the people of Earth are able to set up a research facility. 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 another 20 years in the future, so even if we do discover a Martian gateway now, we could gain a respite to avert catastrophe. If we did uncover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether a certain tech billionaire would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the discovery wasn't something he personally paid for, allowing him to assert savior-like credit for mankind's journey into the stars. This precedes we consider the harvesting of extraterrestrial genetics and subsequent mutations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars serve as a long-term hope for humanity. Be it in the director's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to act as a symbol of optimism. If anyone wishes to make that dubious red-planet property deal, perhaps they ought to begin with first ensuring the fictional depiction look good.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the strangest features of the current MCU is the way it handles the multiple world-threatening cataclysms, including a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are largely not shown in the films themselves; the films have turned into a clock radio perpetually running a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's annual increments. So there's a large assortment of Marvel stuff that various wikis helpfully explain to be set in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated 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 Marvel has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're in for a whole lot of frustrating wheel-spinning in 2026, along with the related narrative that in truth, this nonsensical crap happening in front of us is crucial to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will probably turn out to be correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins nearer the present, initiating its chronology approximately 2016. Thus, when a virus that knocks out the majority of Earth’s people has done its damage, and simultaneously boosted the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s only 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) to come. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this virus spreads globally and taking place in 2019, appears downright eerie in the aftermath of the real-world global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re now half a decade from the spread of Covid-19, and society, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, hasn't been annihilated, and our technology certainly hasn't been disabled. Yet this most pessimistic of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a substantial downer in store, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will inevitably result in warfare, no matter the work of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts don't represent the most. Right now, it feels difficult to dispute that, even though we ought to try.

Metropolis

Easily the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to marking its centennial. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists preside over the towers as workers work tirelessly underground on the machines that power the city. Rich city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his perspective changed to these massive class divisions when he falls for Maria, an subterranean activist who preaches a reconciliation of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans builds a robot in her likeness, aiming to tear the whole of Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a robot designed to mimic a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's a component flipped by reality in a vision of tomorrow that in other ways seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where advanced machinery relies on old-fashioned human toil, which seems like a most logical fusion of conservative disdain for “the working class” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It has not yet come to pass, but it's simple to picture a somewhat less stylish-looking iteration of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the haves and the poor is bridged with love; not so much with concrete reforms. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems hopeful about the possibility