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The year 2025 might sound more futuristic. Perhaps it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we currently stand, with every science-fiction-style advancement – primarily the broad integration of AI – appearing dystopian, or perhaps even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-backed anti-human technology would actually function more effectively?) Did no one sound the alarm about this?

The response, particularly concerning our sci-fi movies made long ago (or sometimes months ago) set in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of these prophecies are broadly applicable (worldwide disaster) but in detail far-fetched (when mankind is inevitably ravaged, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population alongside us). Some of them are prescient; others just look like poor visual effects. Yet it remains valuable to explore where different directors, ranging from masters to journeymen, believed we'd be situated by this time in our planet's development. Therefore, we shall take a look a selection of the films that have been set in 2026 over the years and see if they contain any lessons to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that humanity finds a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to set up a research facility. Now, the bad stuff – in terms of plot and in terms of garish film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually go down for two more decades later, so should we find a Martian gateway this year, we might have some time to avert catastrophe. If we did uncover a portal to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether Elon Musk would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the discovery was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to claim savior-like credit for mankind's journey into the stars. This precedes we even get to the harvesting of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting transformations into monstrous beings. (Again, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for the reasons we let Mars become a stretch-goal aspiration for mankind. Be it in John Carpenter's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely act as a symbol of hope. Should someone wants to close that dubious Martian real estate sale, maybe they ought to begin with first ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the strangest features of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the multiple global disasters, including a half-decade leap whose events are largely not shown in the films themselves; the films have turned into a alarm clock constantly set a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. So there's a large assortment of MCU content that various wikis clarify to be set in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated adventure *The Marvels*, occur far away from Earth, and so feel quite unmoored from our sense of time. But the bad stuff is among the weakest the studio has created: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by this stuff, we're facing a great deal of annoying wheel-spinning in 2026, including the related spin that in truth, this nonsensical crap happening in front of us is crucial to future events. Even worse, in the real world that claim will likely prove accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the classic five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is set in the more distant future of Earth, but the new trilogy 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 knocks out the majority of Earth’s human population has run its course, and simultaneously boosted the intelligence of apes, it’s merely 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this virus spreads globally and set in 2019, appears profoundly unsettling in the wake of the real-world global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re now half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though obviously wounded by the still-spreading virus, was not wiped out, and our technology certainly hasn't been knocked out. Yet this bleakest of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (at least so far!) nonetheless contains a substantial downer to offer, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the efforts of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, although those instincts are not held by the most. Currently, it feels difficult to dispute that, despite the fact that we ought to try.

Metropolis

Easily the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie nearing celebrating its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen preside over the towers as workers work tirelessly underground on the equipment that keep everything running. Affluent city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these massive social gaps when he falls for Maria, an underground organizer who advocates for a coming together of the separate strata of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans builds a robot in her likeness, aiming to bring the whole of Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a machine designed to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but someone who desires to see them destroyed; it's one element flipped by the modern world in a future that in other ways appears 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 zeal for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet come to pass, but it's simple to picture a slightly less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city growing with the prospect of a resurgence to industrial production. The trickier, harder-to-imagine feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is bridged with love; not so much with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the chance