Fresh Start, Familiar Cautionary Tales: Lessons from Films Set in 2026 Show Us?

The date 2025 could appear more futuristic. Perhaps it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". But 2026 signifies a leap forward, and it's where we find ourselves, with each science-fiction-style development – primarily the broad integration of artificial intelligence – seeming dystopian, or perhaps more grim. (Doesn't it feel like in a proper dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology might operate more effectively?) Did no one sound the alarm about this?

The response, particularly regarding science fiction films made long ago (or sometimes months ago) set in 2026, is a mixed bag. A number of those warnings are universally relevant (global catastrophe) but specifically implausible (if humanity is ultimately decimated, we will most likely bring down the primate species with us). Some of them are prescient; the rest just look like poor green screen. But it's worth examining where different film-makers, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be positioned by this time in the world's evolution. Therefore, we shall examine a selection of the films that have been set in 2026 throughout cinematic history and see if they have anything to impart.

The Game 'Doom'

Now, this isn't promising. According to the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose 20th anniversary was noted by virtually no one, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an long-lost metropolis on Mars, where the people of Earth are able to establish a scientific outpost. Now, the bad stuff – regarding plot and concerning garish cinematic imitations of a FPS video game – doesn't really transpire for two more decades later, so even if we do discover a portal to Mars this year, we might have a respite to avert catastrophe. Were we to discover a passageway to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to determine whether a certain tech billionaire would remain extremely excited to send everyone to Mars or would instantly become dejected that the portal wasn't something he personally paid for, allowing him to claim messianic credit for mankind's journey to the cosmos. This precedes we consider the collection of extraterrestrial genetics and subsequent transformations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, distinct from the acclaimed director's film.) In general, *Doom* is (if nothing else) a good test case for why, exactly we allow Mars become a long-term aspiration for mankind. Be it in John Carpenter's chintzy space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the realistic sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the new-age mysticism of *Mission to Mars*, our far-off planet doesn't tend to serve as a symbol of hope. Should someone wishes to make that dubious red-planet property deal, perhaps they should start with at least making the fantasy version look good.

The Marvel Dregs

A of the strangest features of the present MCU is the way it handles the multiple world-threatening cataclysms, including a five-year time-jump whose occurrences are largely undepicted in the films themselves; the movies have become like a clock radio perpetually running a few minutes fast – except with minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a whole bunch of MCU content that fan sites clarify to be taking place in 2026. The good ones, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, take place far away from Earth, and so seem pretty unmoored from any concrete sense of time. However the bad stuff is among the weakest the studio has ever produced: the nonsensically meandering TV show *Secret Invasion* and the Zoom-call debacle of *Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania*. Judging by these examples, we're facing a great deal of annoying stagnation in 2026, including the related narrative that in truth, this confusing mess unfolding before our eyes is crucial to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the real world that assertion will probably prove accurate.

The Apes Saga Continues

The majority of the original five-film *Planet of the Apes* series is set in the more distant tomorrow of Earth, but the new trilogy that began with 2011’s *Rise of the Planet of the Apes* begins nearer the present, starting its chronology around 2016. Thus, when a virus that knocks out most of Earth’s people has done its damage, and simultaneously enhanced the cognitive abilities of apes, it’s only 2026, with further human indignities (and simian triumphs) to come. The post-credits scene of *Rise*, illustrating how rapidly this contagion propagates around the world and taking place around 2019, looks profoundly unsettling in the aftermath of the actual global health crisis that would dawn in 2020. By comparison, the movie *Dawn* seems less literal; if you can believe it, we’re already six years out from the onset of Covid-19, and humanity, though clearly wounded by the ongoing virus, hasn't been wiped out, and technological infrastructure certainly hasn't been knocked out. Yet this bleakest of the quartet of contemporary *Apes* movies (at least so far!) still has a significant downer in store, implying that human and/or ape nature, however one defines either, will unavoidably lead to warfare, no matter the work of the best-intentioned among us. We’re at the mercy of those who appeal to others’ baser impulses, even if those drives don't represent the most. Currently, it feels hard to argue with that, despite the fact that we ought to try.

Metropolis

Easily the best-known portrayal of 2026 in film is from a movie nearing marking its 100th anniversary. The director's iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a city of tomorrow where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly underground on the machines that keep everything running. Affluent surface resident Freder, son of the city’s master, has his eyes opened to these enormous social gaps when he becomes obsessed with Maria, an subterranean activist who advocates for a reconciliation of the separate strata of Metropolis. A scientist with more radical plans creates a automaton in her image, hoping to bring the entire Metropolis down in flames. In this narrative, a machine designed to mimic a human isn't a tool of the ruling corporate class, but someone who wants to see them destroyed; it's a component inverted by the modern world in a future that in other ways seems to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where technology depends on traditional manual labor, which appears as a most logical union of rightwing disdain for “unskilled workers” and corporate zeal for an tech boom. It has not yet come to pass, but it's easy to imagine a slightly more utilitarian iteration of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, harder-to-imagine accomplishment is the ending of the film, where the chasm between the haves and the poor is spanned with love; rather than with concrete reforms. Like *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie advocates coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it appears hopeful about the chance