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The date 2025 might sound more futuristic. Maybe it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with each science-fiction-style advancement – primarily the widespread adoption of AI – seeming bleak, or possibly even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-backed dehumanizing technology might function a bit better?) Did no one warn us about this?

The answer, particularly concerning our sci-fi movies made long ago (or sometimes months ago) set in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of these prophecies are broadly applicable (worldwide disaster) but specifically implausible (if humanity is ultimately decimated, we will most likely bring down the ape population with us). Some of them are visionary; others just look like bad green screen. But it's valuable to explore where various film-makers, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be situated by now in our planet's development. Therefore, we shall take a look at some of the films that have been set in 2026 over the years and determine if they contain any lessons to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was recently celebrated by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the people of Earth can establish a scientific outpost. Currently, the bad stuff – regarding narrative and in terms of garish film versions of a first-person-shooter video game – doesn't really go down for another 20 years later, so should we do discover a Martian gateway this year, we could gain a respite to avert catastrophe. If we did uncover a portal to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to tell whether Elon Musk would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the portal was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to assert savior-like credit for humanity's journey to the cosmos. That's before we consider the harvesting of extraterrestrial genetics and subsequent transformations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars serve as a stretch-goal aspiration for mankind. Be it in the director's chintzy genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a beacon of optimism. Should someone wishes to make that questionable red-planet real estate sale, maybe they should start with first making the fictional depiction appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the strangest features of the current MCU is the way it handles the various global cataclysms, encompassing a half-decade leap whose events are largely undepicted in the movies themselves; the films have become like a alarm clock perpetually running a few minutes fast – except with minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of Marvel stuff that fan sites clarify 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 feel pretty detached from our sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst the studio has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on this stuff, we're in for a great deal of frustrating wheel-spinning in 2026, along with the accompanying narrative that in truth, this confusing mess happening before our eyes is essential to future events. Even worse, in the actual world that claim will likely turn out to be accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

The majority of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* cycle is set in the further-flung tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts closer to home, initiating its chronology approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that devastates the majority of Earth’s people 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*, depicting how swiftly this virus spreads around the world and taking place around 2019, appears downright eerie in the aftermath of the real-world global health crisis that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; astonishingly, we’re already half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, hasn't been annihilated, and our technology definitely hasn't been knocked out. But this bleakest of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a significant bummer to offer, implying that human and/or ape nature, however one defines either, will inevitably lead to warfare, regardless of the work of the most well-meaning among us. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to 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 depiction of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to marking its centennial. The director's silent classic *Metropolis* takes place in a futuristic city where wealthy industrialists preside over the towers as workers work tirelessly below the surface on the equipment that keep everything running. Rich surface resident Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his eyes opened to these enormous social gaps when he falls for Maria, an underground activist who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans creates a robot in her image, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot designed to mimic a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but someone who desires to see them destroyed; it's a component inverted by the modern world in a future that in other ways seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where technology depends on traditional human toil, which seems like a most logical fusion of rightwing disdain for “unskilled workers” and business zeal for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to picture a slightly 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 ending of the film, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is spanned with compassion; not so much with specific policies. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the possibility