I watched every movie set in 2026

Quick Overview

The speaker reviewed every movie set in the year 2026, concluding that while most failed to predict modern phenomena like plastic surgery, cryptocurrency, or influencer culture, the film Metropolis (1927) provided the sharpest, albeit unintentional, crystal ball into contemporary issues concerning technological control and class division, ultimately leading the speaker to declare Doom (2005) the best film on the list after a detailed comparison.

Key Points: The speaker observed that movies set in 2026 universally failed to predict modern vanity trends like plastic surgery, cryptocurrency, or the presence of black pill influencers. The film Doom (2005), starring The Rock, featured horrendous props, costing $60 million with $59 million going to The Rock, and its script mirrored modern passive listening scripts, leading the speaker to state, "I think it would do Stranger Things numbers." The speaker analyzed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) as a thinly veiled metaphor for AI data centers, noting Malcolm's negotiation for the hydroelectric dam represented an unassuming tech founder seeking massive power. Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) was deemed the 'sharp crystal ball' because its themes—a technological elite ruling from skyscrapers over underground workers, and a robot used to incite revolt—directly parallel modern class struggle and technological manipulation. In Metropolis, the inventor Rotwang kept the dead body of Hell, the father's former lover, and was tasked by Daddy Frederson to use the robot duplicate of Maria to 'destroy the connection' his son Freder had with the real Maria. The speaker admitted watching Metropolis on 1.5x speed because the silent film acting style looked like people mocking millennials on TikTok, but still praised Lang for avoiding fatalities among his thousands of extras.

Context: The video creator undertook a personal challenge to watch every movie they could find that featured the year 2026 in its setting to analyze what these fictional futures predicted correctly and incorrectly about the present day. The review spans films from different eras, including the 2005 video game adaptation Doom, the 2014 sci-fi film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and the seminal 1927 silent film Metropolis, all while incorporating personal commentary, sponsor reads, and tangential observations about modern media consumption.