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The year 2025 might sound increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the sound of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies one step beyond, and it's where we currently stand, with each futuristic development – chiefly the broad integration of artificial intelligence – seeming dystopian, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored anti-human technology would actually operate more effectively?) Didn't anyone sound the alarm regarding this?

The response, particularly concerning science fiction films made long ago (or sometimes months ago) positioned in 2026, is both yes and no. Some of those warnings are universally relevant (worldwide disaster) but specifically implausible (if humanity is inevitably decimated, we will almost certainly bring down the primate species alongside us). Some of them are visionary; others just look like poor visual effects. Yet it remains worth examining where various film-makers, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by now in our planet's development. So let's examine at some of the films that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and see if they have anything to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the inhabitants of Earth are able to establish a research facility. Currently, the bad stuff – regarding narrative and concerning over-the-top film versions of a first-person-shooter video game – doesn't really transpire for another 20 years later, so should we find a Martian gateway now, we might have some time to avert catastrophe. Were we to discover a portal to an old Martian city, it's genuinely difficult to determine whether Elon Musk would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the discovery wasn't something he funded himself, enabling him to claim messianic ownership for mankind's journey into the stars. This precedes we consider the collection of Martian chromosomes and subsequent transformations into horrific creatures. (Again, this is closer to 2046, not to be confused with the Wong Kar-wai film.) In general, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for why, exactly we allow Mars become a stretch-goal hope for mankind. Be it in John Carpenter's cheap-looking genre hybrid *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic science fiction of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet doesn't tend to act as a beacon of hope. If anyone wants to make that questionable red-planet real estate sale, maybe they ought to begin with first ensuring the fantasy version appear appealing.

The Marvel Dregs

One of the strangest features of the present Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the multiple global cataclysms, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are largely undepicted in the films themselves; the movies have turned into a alarm clock perpetually set a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. So there's a whole bunch of Marvel stuff that various wikis clarify to be taking place 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 quite detached from our sense of time. But the poorer material is some of the worst the studio has created: the convoluted and aimless TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're in for a whole lot of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the accompanying narrative that actually, this nonsensical crap unfolding in front of us is essential to whatever happens next. More troublingly, in the actual world that claim will likely turn out to be accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

The majority of the original five-movie *Planet of the Apes* cycle is located in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that started with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* starts nearer the present, initiating its chronology around 2016. So by the time a pathogen that devastates the majority of Earth’s people has run its course, and simultaneously enhanced the intelligence of primates, it’s merely 2026, with further human indignities (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, depicting how swiftly this virus propagates around the world and set in 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the wake of the real-world global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re now half a decade from the spread of Covid-19, and society, though clearly impacted by the still-spreading virus, hasn't been wiped out, and technological infrastructure certainly has not been disabled. But this most pessimistic of the four contemporary *Apes* movies (to date!) nonetheless contains a substantial downer to offer, suggesting that human and/or ape nature, whatever qualifies as either, will inevitably result in warfare, no matter the work of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, although those drives don't represent the most. Currently, it seems hard to argue with that, despite the fact that we probably should.

Metropolis

By far the most prominent depiction of 2026 in cinema is from a movie nearing marking its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s silent classic *Metropolis* is set in a futuristic city where wealthy industrialists lord over the skyscrapers as workers toil below the surface on the machines that keep everything running. Rich surface resident Freder, son of the city’s ruler, has his perspective changed to these massive social gaps when he falls for Maria, an underground activist who advocates for a coming together of the two halves of Metropolis. A inventor with more radical plans builds a automaton in her likeness, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a machine created to mimic a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but someone who wants to see them destroyed; it's one element flipped by the modern world in a vision of tomorrow that otherwise seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery depends on old-fashioned manual labor, which seems like a most logical union of rightwing disdain for “the working class” and corporate enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It hasn't yet come to pass, but it's easy to picture a somewhat less stylish-looking iteration of Lang’s city growing with the prospect of a return to manufacturing. The more complex, harder-to-imagine accomplishment is the conclusion of the film, where the chasm between the wealthy and the have-nots is bridged with love; rather than with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for peaceful cohabitation; in contrast to *Dawn*, it seems hopeful about the chance