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The year 2025 could appear more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". However 2026 represents a leap forward, a moment where we find ourselves, with each science-fiction-style advancement – chiefly the broad integration of AI – seeming bleak, or possibly even worse. (It often seems like in a proper dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology might operate more effectively?) Did no one warn us about this?

The answer, at least regarding science fiction films from years ago (or occasionally recently) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of those warnings are broadly applicable (worldwide disaster) but specifically implausible (if humanity is ultimately decimated, we will most likely bring down the ape population with us). Others of them are visionary; others just resemble bad green screen. But it's worth examining where different film-makers, from geniuses to journeymen, believed we'd be situated by now in our planet's evolution. So let's examine at some of the films that have been depicted in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they have anything to impart.

Doom

Now, this isn't promising. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that humanity finds a portal to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Currently, the bad stuff – in terms of narrative and in terms of garish film versions of a FPS video game – does not actually transpire for two more decades in the future, so should we find a portal to Mars this year, we could gain a respite to avert true disaster. If we did uncover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether Elon Musk would still be extremely excited to dispatch people to Mars or would immediately turn dejected that the discovery was not a thing he funded himself, enabling him to claim messianic ownership for mankind's journey to the cosmos. That's before we even get to the collection of Martian chromosomes and resulting transformations into monstrous beings. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a good test case for the reasons we let Mars serve as a long-term hope for mankind. Whether in John Carpenter's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to act as a symbol of hope. If anyone wishes to make that dubious red-planet property deal, maybe they should start with first making the fantasy version look good.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the strangest features of the present MCU is how to account for the various global disasters, encompassing a half-decade leap whose events are largely undepicted in the films themselves; the films have become like a clock radio constantly set a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of Marvel stuff 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*, occur far away from Earth, and so seem pretty detached from any concrete sense of time. However the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by this stuff, we're in for a great deal of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the related narrative that actually, this confusing mess unfolding in front of us is essential to future events. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will probably turn out to be accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

The majority of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the more distant future of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts closer to home, starting 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 boosted the intelligence of primates, it’s only 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) to come. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, depicting how rapidly this virus spreads globally and taking place in 2019, appears downright eerie in the wake of the real-world global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; astonishingly, we’re now half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, was not wiped out, and technological infrastructure definitely has not been disabled. But this bleakest of the four modern *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial downer to offer, suggesting that the fundamental nature of beings, whatever qualifies as each, will inevitably result in warfare, no matter the work of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, even if those drives are not held by the majority. Right now, it seems difficult to argue with that, even though we ought to try.

Metropolis

By far the best-known depiction of 2026 in cinema is from a movie close to marking its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a futuristic city where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as workers toil below the surface on the machines that keep everything running. Rich city-dweller Freder, scion of the city’s master, has his perspective changed to these enormous social gaps when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground organizer who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with darker plans creates a automaton in her image, aiming to tear the entire Metropolis to ruin. Here, a robot created to imitate a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but someone who wants to witness their downfall; it's a component inverted by the modern world in a future that otherwise appears to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology relies on old-fashioned human toil, which seems like a most logical union of rightwing contempt for “the working class” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It has not yet come to pass, but it's simple to imagine a slightly more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city expanding out with the promise of a return to industrial production. The trickier, harder-to-imagine accomplishment is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the haves and the poor is bridged with compassion; not so much with specific policies. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the possibility