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The date 2025 could appear more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies one step beyond, and it's where we currently stand, with every science-fiction-style advancement – chiefly the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence – seeming dystopian, or possibly more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-backed dehumanizing technology might function more effectively?) Did no one warn us about this?

The response, particularly concerning our sci-fi movies from years ago (or occasionally months ago) set in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of those warnings are broadly applicable (worldwide disaster) but specifically far-fetched (if humanity is inevitably ravaged, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population alongside us). Some of them are prescient; the rest just look like bad visual effects. But it's worth examining where different film-makers, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be situated by now in our planet's evolution. So let's take a look at some of the films that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and determine if they contain any lessons to teach us.

Doom

Now, this doesn't bode well. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the people of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Currently, the bad stuff – regarding plot and in terms of garish film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for another 20 years later, so even if we find a Martian gateway now, we might have a respite to avoid true disaster. Were we to discover 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 disheartened that the discovery wasn't something he personally paid for, allowing him to assert savior-like ownership for mankind's journey to the cosmos. This precedes we even get to the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and subsequent mutations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars become a long-term hope for mankind. Whether in the director's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely act as a symbol of hope. If anyone wants to close that questionable Martian property deal, maybe they ought to begin with first ensuring the fictional depiction look good.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the various world-threatening disasters, encompassing a half-decade leap whose events are mostly not shown in the films themselves; the films have become like a clock radio perpetually running a few minutes fast – except with minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a large assortment 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 adventure *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so feel pretty unmoored from our sense of time. But the poorer material is among the weakest Marvel has created: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're facing a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the related narrative that in truth, this nonsensical crap happening before our eyes is crucial to future events. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will probably prove correct.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the more distant 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 virus that knocks out the majority of Earth’s people has run its course, and also boosted the intelligence of apes, it’s only 2026, with further human indignities (and victories for apes) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how swiftly this contagion spreads around the world and taking place around 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the real-world global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re now six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though obviously impacted by the still-spreading virus, was not annihilated, and technological infrastructure definitely hasn't been knocked out. Yet this most pessimistic of the four modern *Apes* movies (at least so far!) nonetheless contains a significant bummer to offer, suggesting that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as either, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, no matter the efforts of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, even if those drives don't represent the most. Right now, it seems difficult to dispute that, despite the fact that we ought to try.

Metropolis

By far the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie close to celebrating its centennial. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a futuristic city where wealthy industrialists lord over the skyscrapers as laborers toil underground on the equipment that keep everything running. Affluent city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s master, has his perspective changed to these massive class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground activist who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a automaton in her likeness, aiming to tear the entire Metropolis to ruin. Here, a machine created to mimic a human isn't a tool of the elite, but an entity who desires to witness their downfall; it's one element flipped by the modern world in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise appears to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery depends on old-fashioned human toil, which appears as a most logical union of conservative disdain for “unskilled workers” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It has not yet materialized, but it's easy to imagine a somewhat more utilitarian version of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, less plausible accomplishment is the ending of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the have-nots is spanned with love; not so much with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the chance