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The year 2025 could appear more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the letter "f" in "five". But 2026 represents a leap forward, and it's where we find ourselves, with every futuristic development – primarily 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?) Didn't anyone sound the alarm about this?

The response, particularly concerning science fiction films from years ago (or occasionally months ago) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. A number of those warnings are broadly applicable (global catastrophe) but specifically far-fetched (if humanity is ultimately ravaged, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population alongside us). Others of them are prescient; the rest just look like poor visual effects. But it's worth examining where various film-makers, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by this time in our planet's evolution. Therefore, we shall take a look a selection 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 two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that humanity discovers a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to set up a scientific outpost. Now, the negative events – regarding narrative and in terms of over-the-top film versions of a FPS video game – doesn't really transpire for two more decades in the future, so even if we find a portal to Mars this year, we might have some time to avoid catastrophe. If we did discover a portal to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to tell whether a certain tech billionaire would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would immediately turn disheartened that the portal wasn't something he funded himself, enabling him to assert messianic credit for humanity's journey into the stars. That's before we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and subsequent transformations into monstrous beings. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from 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 humanity. Whether in John Carpenter's chintzy genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely act as a symbol of optimism. If anyone wishes to close that questionable red-planet property deal, perhaps they ought to begin with first making the fantasy version appear appealing.

Marvel's Lesser Offerings

One of the goofiest quirks of the present MCU is the way it handles the various global disasters, encompassing a half-decade leap whose occurrences are largely not shown in the films themselves; the movies have become like a alarm clock constantly set a few seconds fast – except with minutes, it's annual increments. So there's a large assortment of Marvel stuff that various wikis clarify to be set in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underrated adventure *The Marvels*, occur distant from Earth, and so feel pretty unmoored from any concrete sense of time. However the poorer material is some of the worst the studio has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call farce 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 happening in front of us is crucial to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the actual world that assertion will probably prove accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

The majority of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the further-flung future of Earth, but the new trilogy that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins closer to home, initiating its chronology approximately 2016. Thus, when a virus that knocks out most of Earth’s human population has run its course, and also boosted the intelligence of primates, it’s merely 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this virus propagates around the world and set in 2019, appears profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the actual global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks less literal; if you can believe it, we’re now half a decade from the spread of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly wounded by the still-spreading virus, was not annihilated, and technological infrastructure certainly hasn't been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial downer to offer, implying that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as either, will inevitably lead to violent conflict, no matter the work of the best-intentioned among us. We’re subject to the whims of those who appeal to others’ baser impulses, although those instincts don't represent the most. Right now, it seems difficult to dispute that, even though we ought to try.

Metropolis

By far the best-known portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing marking its centennial. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where wealthy industrialists preside over the towers as workers toil underground on the machines that power the city. Affluent surface resident Freder, son of the city’s master, has his perspective changed to these enormous class divisions when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an underground organizer who advocates for a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with more radical plans builds a automaton in her likeness, aiming to tear the whole of Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a machine designed to mimic 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 reality in a future that otherwise appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery depends on old-fashioned manual labor, which appears as a most logical union of conservative contempt for “the working class” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It has not yet come to pass, but it's easy to imagine a slightly less stylish-looking iteration of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the have-nots is spanned with compassion; not so much with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates peaceful cohabitation; unlike *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the chance