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The year 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Maybe it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies one step beyond, and it's where we currently stand, with each futuristic advancement – chiefly the widespread adoption of AI – seeming dystopian, or possibly even worse. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored anti-human technology might operate more effectively?) Did no one sound the alarm about this?

The response, particularly concerning science fiction films made long ago (or occasionally recently) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. Some of those warnings are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but specifically implausible (if humanity is inevitably ravaged, we will almost certainly bring down the primate species alongside us). Some of them are visionary; others just look like bad visual effects. But it's valuable to explore where various film-makers, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by now in the world's development. So let's take a look a selection of the films that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and see if they contain any lessons to impart.

Doom

Now, this isn't promising. In the universe of the video game adaptation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was recently celebrated by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Currently, the bad stuff – regarding plot and concerning over-the-top cinematic imitations of a FPS video game – doesn't really go down for two more decades in the future, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars this year, we could gain some time to avert true disaster. Were we to uncover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether Elon Musk would still be super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would immediately turn disheartened that the discovery was not a thing he personally paid for, allowing him to claim messianic ownership for mankind's expansion into the stars. This precedes we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and resulting mutations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the Wong Kar-wai film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for why, exactly we allow Mars become a long-term hope for humanity. Whether in John Carpenter's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to act as a symbol of optimism. Should someone wishes to close that questionable Martian property deal, perhaps they should start with at least making the fictional depiction appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the goofiest quirks of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is how to account for the multiple world-threatening cataclysms, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose events are largely not shown in the movies themselves; the movies have turned into a clock radio perpetually running a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's annual increments. Consequently, there exists a large assortment of MCU content that various wikis helpfully explain to be set in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated romp *The Marvels*, occur distant from Earth, and so feel pretty unmoored from any concrete sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst Marvel has ever produced: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on these examples, we're in for a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, along with the accompanying narrative that in truth, this nonsensical crap unfolding before our eyes is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the actual world that assertion will likely prove accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the further-flung future of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins nearer the present, starting its chronology approximately 2016. So by the time a pathogen that devastates the majority of Earth’s human population has done its damage, and also enhanced the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s merely 2026, with further human indignities (and victories for apes) ahead. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this virus propagates around the world and set 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* looks less literal; if you can believe it, we’re now six years out from the spread of Covid-19, and society, though obviously impacted by the ongoing virus, hasn't been annihilated, and our technology definitely has not been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a significant bummer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines each, will inevitably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the efforts of the best-intentioned individuals. We’re subject to the whims of those who appeal to others’ worst instincts, although those instincts don't represent the most. Currently, it feels difficult to argue with that, despite the fact that we ought to try.

The Silent Classic

By far the most prominent depiction of 2026 in film is from a movie close to marking its centennial. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists lord over the towers as workers work tirelessly underground on the equipment that keep everything running. Rich surface resident Freder, scion of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these enormous class divisions when he falls for Maria, an subterranean activist who preaches a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with more radical plans creates a automaton in her likeness, aiming to bring the whole of Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a machine designed to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the elite, but someone who wants to witness their downfall; it's one element flipped by reality in a vision of tomorrow that in other ways seems to be well on its way. *Metropolis* also envisions a world where advanced machinery relies on old-fashioned manual labor, which seems like a perfect fusion of rightwing contempt for “the working class” and corporate zeal for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, 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 trickier, less plausible accomplishment is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the haves and the poor is bridged with love; rather than with concrete reforms. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the possibility