Fresh Start, Old Warnings: What Can Films Set in 2026 Teach Us?
The year 2025 could appear increasingly advanced. Perhaps it's the presence of the consonant "f" in "five". However 2026 signifies one step beyond, a moment where we find ourselves, with every futuristic advancement – primarily the broad integration of AI – seeming dystopian, or possibly more grim. (It often seems like in a true dystopia, the brain-numbing corporate-sponsored dehumanizing technology might operate a bit better?) Did no one warn us about this?
The response, at least 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 (when mankind is ultimately decimated, we will most likely take the primate species with us). Others of them are prescient; the rest just look like bad green screen. Yet it remains worth examining where various film-makers, from geniuses to journeymen, thought we'd be situated by this time in the world's evolution. Therefore, we shall examine at some of the movies that have been depicted in 2026 over the years and see if they have anything to teach us.
The Game 'Doom'
Well, this doesn't bode well. In the universe of the game-to-film translation *Doom*, whose two-decade milestone was noted by hardly anyone, 2026 is the year that mankind discovers a gateway to an ancient city on Mars, where the people of Earth can establish a research facility. Currently, the bad stuff – regarding narrative and concerning garish cinematic imitations of a first-person-shooter video game – does not actually go down for another 20 years later, so even if we do discover a Martian gateway now, we might have some time to avoid true disaster. If we did uncover a portal to an old Martian city, it's truly hard to tell whether a certain tech billionaire would still be extremely excited to dispatch people to Mars or would instantly become disheartened that the portal wasn't something he personally paid for, allowing him to assert messianic ownership for humanity's journey to the cosmos. That's before we even get to the collection of Martian chromosomes and subsequent transformations into horrific creatures. (Once more, this is nearer 2046, not to be confused with the acclaimed director's film.) Overall, *Doom* is (at the very least) a useful example for the reasons we allow Mars serve as a long-term aspiration for mankind. Be it in the director's cheap-looking space-western *Ghosts of Mars*, the more grounded sci-fi of *Red Planet*, or the woo-woo spiritualism of *Mission to Mars*, our distant neighbor planet doesn't tend to act as a beacon of optimism. Should someone wishes to make that questionable red-planet property deal, perhaps they ought to begin with at least making the fictional depiction appear appealing.
The Marvel Dregs
A of the goofiest quirks of the current Marvel Cinematic Universe is the way it handles the multiple world-threatening cataclysms, encompassing a five-year time-jump whose events are mostly undepicted in the films themselves; the films have become like a clock radio perpetually running a few minutes fast – only instead of minutes, it's years. Consequently, there exists a large assortment of MCU content that various wikis helpfully explain to be taking place in 2026. The better entries, like *Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3* and the underappreciated romp *The Marvels*, occur distant from Earth, and so feel quite unmoored from our sense of time. However the poorer material is among the weakest 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 great deal of frustrating stagnation in 2026, including the related narrative that actually, this confusing mess happening in front of us is crucial to whatever happens next. Even worse, in the actual world that claim will probably turn out to be accurate.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Most of the original five-film *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* starts nearer the present, starting its chronology around 2016. Thus, when a pathogen that knocks out most of Earth’s people has done its damage, and also enhanced the cognitive abilities of primates, it’s merely 2026, with additional setbacks for mankind (and victories for apes) ahead. The end-credits sequence of *Rise*, depicting how rapidly this virus propagates globally and set in 2019, appears downright eerie in the wake of the real-world pandemic that would begin in 2020. In contrast, the movie *Dawn* looks more abstract; if you can believe it, we’re now 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 most pessimistic of the four modern *Apes* movies (to date!) still has a substantial bummer to offer, implying that the fundamental nature of beings, however one defines either, will unavoidably lead to violent conflict, regardless of the work of the most well-meaning individuals. We’re at the mercy of those who exploit others’ baser impulses, even if those instincts don't represent the most. Currently, it seems hard to dispute that, despite the fact that we ought to try.
Metropolis
By far the best-known depiction of 2026 in cinema is from a movie nearing marking its 100th anniversary. Fritz Lang’s iconic silent film *Metropolis* takes place in a futuristic city where rich businessmen preside over the skyscrapers as workers work tirelessly below the surface on the equipment that power the city. Affluent city-dweller Freder, son of the city’s master, has his perspective changed to these enormous social gaps when he falls for Maria, an underground activist who advocates for a reconciliation of the two halves of Metropolis. A scientist with darker plans creates a automaton in her likeness, hoping to tear the entire Metropolis to ruin. In this narrative, a robot created to imitate a human does not serve as an instrument of the elite, but someone who desires to witness their downfall; it's one element inverted by reality in a future that otherwise appears to be progressing. *Metropolis* also imagines a world where advanced machinery relies on traditional manual labor, which appears as a perfect union of conservative contempt for “the working class” and business enthusiasm for an AI bubble. It has not yet materialized, but it's easy to imagine a somewhat less stylish-looking version of Lang’s city growing with the promise of a resurgence to industrial production. The more complex, harder-to-imagine accomplishment 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. Similar to *Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*, the movie pleads for coexistence; unlike *Dawn*, it seems optimistic about the chance