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The date 2025 might sound more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies a leap forward, a moment where we currently stand, with each science-fiction-style development – primarily the broad integration of AI – appearing bleak, or perhaps even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology would actually function a bit better?) Did no one sound the alarm regarding this?

The answer, at least concerning science fiction films made long ago (or occasionally months ago) set in 2026, is a mixed bag. Some of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but specifically far-fetched (when mankind is ultimately ravaged, we will almost certainly take the ape population alongside us). Some of them are visionary; the rest just resemble bad visual effects. Yet it remains worth examining where different directors, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by this time in the world's development. So let's examine at some of the movies that have been set in 2026 throughout cinematic history and determine if they contain any lessons to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this doesn't bode well. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind finds a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can set up a scientific outpost. Currently, the bad stuff – in terms of plot and in terms of over-the-top cinematic imitations of a FPS video game – does not actually 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 uncover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to tell whether a certain tech billionaire would remain super-psyched to dispatch people to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the discovery was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to assert savior-like credit for mankind's expansion into the stars. This precedes we consider the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and resulting transformations into monstrous beings. (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 the reasons we allow Mars become a stretch-goal aspiration for humanity. Whether in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wants to make that dubious red-planet property deal, perhaps they ought to begin with first making the fictional depiction appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the multiple global cataclysms, encompassing a half-decade leap whose occurrences are mostly not shown in the films themselves; the films have turned into a clock radio perpetually set a few seconds fast – only instead of minutes, it's annual increments. So there's a large assortment of MCU content that fan sites helpfully explain to be set in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so feel quite detached from any concrete sense of time. However the bad stuff is some of the worst Marvel has created: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're in for a great deal of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the accompanying spin that in truth, this nonsensical crap unfolding in front of us is crucial to future events. More troublingly, in the real world that claim will probably prove accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* cycle 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 closer to home, starting its chronology around 2016. So by the time a virus that devastates most of Earth’s people has done its damage, and also enhanced the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s only 2026, with further human indignities (and victories for apes) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this virus spreads around the world and taking place around 2019, appears downright eerie in the wake of the real-world global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; if you can believe it, we’re now six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, was not wiped out, and technological infrastructure definitely hasn't been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a substantial downer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as either, will unavoidably lead to warfare, regardless of the efforts of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re subject to the whims of those who appeal to others’ baser impulses, even if those instincts don't represent the most. Currently, it seems difficult to dispute that, even though we probably should.

Metropolis

By far the best-known portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing marking its 100th anniversary. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a futuristic city where wealthy industrialists lord over the skyscrapers as laborers work tirelessly underground on the machines that power the city. Affluent city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these massive class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground activist who preaches a reconciliation of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with darker plans creates a robot in her image, hoping to tear the entire Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a machine designed to mimic a human does not serve as an instrument of the elite, but an entity who wants to witness their downfall; it's one element inverted by reality in a vision of tomorrow that in other ways appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where advanced machinery relies on traditional manual labor, which seems like a perfect union of conservative contempt for “unskilled workers” 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 iteration of Lang’s city growing with the prospect of a return to industrial production. The more complex, less plausible feat is the ending of the film, where the chasm between the haves and the poor is bridged with love; not so much with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the possibility