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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 a leap forward, a moment where we find ourselves, with each futuristic development – primarily the broad integration of artificial intelligence – appearing bleak, or possibly even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology might operate more effectively?) Didn't anyone sound the alarm about this?

The answer, particularly concerning science fiction films from years ago (or sometimes months ago) set in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but specifically far-fetched (when mankind is ultimately decimated, we will almost certainly take the primate species with us). Others of them are visionary; others just look like poor visual effects. But it's valuable to explore where different film-makers, ranging from masters to grunts, believed we'd be situated by now in our planet's evolution. So let's examine a selection of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and determine if they have anything to impart.

Doom

Well, this doesn't bode well. According to the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the people of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – regarding plot and concerning garish cinematic imitations of a first-person-shooter video game – does not actually transpire for two more decades in the future, so even if we do discover a Martian gateway this year, we might have some time to avoid catastrophe. Were we to discover a passageway to an ancient 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 immediately turn dejected that the portal wasn't something he funded himself, allowing him to assert messianic ownership for humanity's journey into the stars. That's before we even get to the harvesting of Martian chromosomes and resulting mutations into monstrous beings. (Again, this is closer to 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars become a stretch-goal aspiration for mankind. Whether in the director's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely act as a beacon of optimism. If anyone wants to close that dubious Martian real estate sale, perhaps they should start with at least making the fantasy version appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

A of the strangest features of the present MCU is the way it handles the various global cataclysms, including a half-decade leap whose events are mostly not shown in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a alarm clock perpetually set a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's annual increments. So there's 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 underrated adventure *The Marvels*, occur far away from Earth, and so seem pretty detached from our sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst Marvel has ever produced: 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 in for a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the related spin that in truth, this confusing mess unfolding in front of us is essential to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the actual world that assertion will probably prove correct.

The Apes Saga Continues

Most of the classic five-film *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the further-flung future of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins nearer the present, initiating its chronology around 2016. Thus, when a pathogen that knocks out most of Earth’s human population has run its course, and also boosted the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s merely 2026, with further human indignities (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this contagion spreads around the world and set around 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the actual pandemic that would begin in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* looks less literal; if you can believe it, we’re now six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and society, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, was not wiped out, and our technology definitely has not been knocked out. Yet this most pessimistic of the four modern *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a significant downer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will inevitably lead to violent conflict, no matter the work of the most well-meaning among us. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ worst instincts, even if those instincts are not held by the most. Right now, it seems difficult to argue with that, despite the fact that we probably should.

Metropolis

Easily the most prominent portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie close to celebrating its centennial. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists preside over the towers as laborers work tirelessly below the surface on the machines that keep everything running. 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 organizer who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A scientist with darker plans builds a automaton in her likeness, aiming to tear the entire Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot designed to mimic a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but an entity who wants to witness their downfall; it's one element inverted by the modern world in a vision of tomorrow that in other ways appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where technology relies on old-fashioned human toil, which appears as a perfect union of conservative disdain for “unskilled workers” and business zeal for an tech boom. It has not yet come to pass, but it's simple to imagine a slightly less stylish-looking iteration of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a return to manufacturing. The trickier, harder-to-imagine feat is the ending of the film, where the chasm between the wealthy and the poor is bridged with compassion; rather than with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the chance