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The date 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". However 2026 represents a leap forward, and it's where we find ourselves, with every futuristic development – primarily the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – appearing dystopian, or perhaps even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed anti-human technology might function a bit better?) Didn't anyone sound the alarm regarding this?

The answer, at least concerning science fiction films from years ago (or sometimes recently) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but in detail far-fetched (if humanity is ultimately decimated, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population with us). Some of them are visionary; others just look like bad visual effects. Yet it remains worth examining where different film-makers, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by this time in the world's evolution. Therefore, we shall examine a selection of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they have anything to teach us.

Doom

Well, this isn't promising. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can set up a research facility. Now, the negative events – in terms of narrative and in terms of garish film versions of a first-person-shooter video game – does not actually go down for another 20 years later, so should we find a Martian gateway this year, we could gain a respite to avert catastrophe. Were we to uncover a portal to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to tell whether a certain tech billionaire would still be extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the portal was not a thing he personally paid for, enabling him to assert messianic credit for mankind's journey into the stars. That's before we consider the harvesting of extraterrestrial genetics and subsequent mutations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for the reasons we let Mars serve as a long-term aspiration for humanity. Whether in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a symbol of optimism. If anyone wishes to close that questionable Martian property deal, perhaps they ought to begin with first making the fictional depiction look good.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the various global disasters, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are mostly not shown in the movies themselves; the films have turned into a clock radio perpetually running a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of MCU content that fan sites helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, occur distant from Earth, and so seem quite detached from any concrete sense of time. But 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*. Based on these examples, we're in for a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the accompanying spin that actually, this nonsensical crap unfolding in front of us is essential to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the real world that claim will probably turn out to be accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, initiating its chronology approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that devastates the majority of Earth’s human population has run its course, and also enhanced the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s merely 2026, with additional human indignities (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how rapidly this contagion propagates around the world and taking place in 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the real-world global health crisis that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* looks less literal; if you can believe it, we’re already half a decade from the onset 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 modern *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a substantial bummer to offer, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, no matter the efforts of the most well-meaning among us. We’re subject to the whims of those who appeal to others’ baser impulses, although those drives don't represent the most. Currently, it seems difficult to argue with that, despite the fact that we probably should.

Metropolis

Easily the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in cinema is from a movie nearing marking its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s silent classic *Metropolis* takes place in a futuristic city where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as laborers work tirelessly below the surface on the machines that power the city. Affluent city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these massive class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an subterranean activist who preaches a reconciliation of the two halves of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans creates a robot in her likeness, hoping to tear the whole of Metropolis to ruin. Here, a machine created to mimic a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but someone who desires to witness their downfall; it's a component 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 technology depends on old-fashioned human toil, which appears as a most logical fusion of conservative contempt for “the working class” and business zeal for an tech boom. 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 prospect of a resurgence to manufacturing. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is spanned with compassion; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the possibility