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The year 2025 might sound increasingly advanced. Maybe it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". However 2026 represents a leap forward, a moment where we find ourselves, with each futuristic advancement – chiefly the broad integration of artificial intelligence – appearing bleak, or possibly more grim. (It often seems like in a proper dystopia, the mind-dulling corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology would actually operate a bit better?) Did no one sound the alarm about this?

The answer, particularly regarding our sci-fi movies from years ago (or sometimes months ago) positioned in 2026, is a mixed bag. Some of these prophecies are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but in detail implausible (when mankind is ultimately decimated, we will almost certainly bring down the ape population with us). Others of them are visionary; others just resemble poor green screen. Yet it remains worth examining where various directors, ranging from masters to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by now in our planet's development. Therefore, we shall examine at some of the films that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and determine if they contain any lessons to teach us.

The Game 'Doom'

Well, this doesn't bode well. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that mankind finds a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth can set up a research facility. Currently, the negative events – regarding narrative and concerning garish cinematic imitations of a first-person-shooter video game – doesn't really transpire for another 20 years later, so even if we find a portal to Mars now, we could gain a respite to avert catastrophe. If we did discover a portal to an ancient Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether a certain tech billionaire would remain super-psyched to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the discovery wasn't something he funded himself, enabling him to claim savior-like ownership for humanity's journey to the cosmos. That's before we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and subsequent mutations into monstrous beings. (Again, this is closer to 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for the reasons we allow Mars become a long-term hope for mankind. Whether in John Carpenter's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet rarely serve as a symbol of optimism. Should someone wants to make that questionable red-planet real estate sale, perhaps they ought to begin with first ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

A 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 movies themselves; the movies have turned into a alarm clock constantly set a few minutes fast – except with minutes, it's years. So there's 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*, occur far away from Earth, and so feel pretty detached from our sense of time. But the bad stuff is some of the worst the studio has created: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the remote-meeting farce of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Based on this stuff, we're facing a great deal of frustrating stagnation in 2026, including the related spin that actually, this nonsensical crap unfolding before our eyes is crucial to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the real world that claim will likely prove accurate.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Most of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* series is located in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the modern series that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins nearer the present, starting its timeline approximately 2016. Thus, when a virus that knocks out the majority of Earth’s people has run its course, and simultaneously boosted the cognitive abilities of apes, it’s only 2026, with further setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) ahead. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this contagion propagates globally and set in 2019, looks downright eerie in the aftermath of the real-world pandemic that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; astonishingly, we’re already half a decade from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though obviously wounded by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been wiped out, and our technology certainly has not been disabled. Yet this bleakest of the quartet of modern *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a substantial bummer to offer, suggesting that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as each, will unavoidably result in violent conflict, regardless of the efforts of the most well-meaning among us. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, although those instincts are not held by the majority. Right now, it seems hard to dispute 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 preside over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly underground on the equipment 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 subterranean activist who advocates for a coming together of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans creates a automaton in her likeness, hoping to bring the whole of Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot designed to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the ruling corporate class, but someone who desires to see them destroyed; it's one element inverted by reality in a vision of tomorrow that in other ways appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology depends on traditional manual labor, which seems like a perfect fusion of rightwing contempt for “the working class” and corporate enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet materialized, but it's simple to imagine a somewhat more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city expanding out with the prospect of a resurgence to manufacturing. The more complex, less plausible feat is the conclusion of the film, where the gap between the wealthy and the poor is bridged with love; not so much with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates coexistence; in contrast to *Dawn*, it appears optimistic about the chance