One of the best sci-fi films of the 2010s is set in 2026

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When you give a specific date to the future setting of a science fiction story, the world will eventually catch up with that date. Since the fictional world will (probably) not resemble the real world, this may diminish the impact of the film or simply show its age. As of this new year, a film in this category is “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”, released in 2014 and set in 2026.

“Dawn” takes place 10 years after “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” which ended with a virus that kills humans but boosts ape intelligence spreading across the world. During this decade, human civilization collapsed into refugee colonies while Caesar’s apes (Andy Serkis) built a primitive society. Unless I missed some important news, the world does not It looks like this right now (but he still has a whole year to make up for it).

Now, “Dawn” isn’t the only one making bad predictions for the future. Take “Star Trek.” The classic episode “Space Seed” said that in the 1990s, Earth would be embroiled in a “eugenics war” where genetically engineered superhumans would attempt to take over. The 1990s came and went, and nothing like this happened. ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 2 Rewrote the Timeline move the eugenics wars to the middle of the 21st century, but this is only an anticipation; once we arrive in 2050, the same problem will return.

Another, more minor example is ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ predicts Irish unification would take place in 2024which ultimately did not happen. Other science fiction films once set in a possible future, but now in the past, include “Escape from New York” (made in 1981, set in 1997), “Blade Runner” (made in 1982, set in 2019), and even the original and fiercely underrated “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” (directed in 1972, released in 1991).

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was released in 2011, and nothing suggested that the film was not located in the contemporary world. However, it also lasted several years, following Caesar’s growth from childhood to adulthood. Neither “Rise” nor “Dawn” give exact dates, but in an interview with Empire Magazine (for its August 2011 issue), “Rise” director Rupert Wyatt suggested that the film was set between 2010 and 2016.

Thus, “Dawn”, which takes place 10 years later, takes place in 2026, the date indicated on the film. now-defunct promotional website for “Dawn”. (It seems that not everyone got the memo, since the Novelization “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” by Alex Irvine claimed that the “simian flu” began spreading in 2012, suggesting that “Dawn” would occur in 2022.)

Even though the exact future suggested in “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” didn’t come to pass, the film’s cultural commentary has aged well. “Planet of the Apes” is the most politically charged blockbuster franchise we have. Take the twist ending written by Rod Serling of the original showing the Statue of Liberty, symbol of all that is good in America, shattered like the colossal wreck described by Percy Bysshe Shelley in his poem “Ozymandias.”

The conclusion of “Planet of the Apes” is that man destroyed himself in a nuclear war, which was inspired by the existential fears of 1968. The world’s superpowers were engaged in a Cold War that had almost escalated in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. When Lyndon Johnson triumphed in the 1964 US presidential election, he did so with the help of incendiary advertising (“Daisy”) suggesting that his opponent Barry Goldwater would start a nuclear war if elected.

“Dawn” honors the political legacy of “Apes” but focuses on smaller weapons: guns.

Contemporary critiques (such as Katey Rich from Vanity Fair) argued that “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” was a message in favor of gun control. Each time the conflict between humans and apes escalates in the film, a gun is at the center of miscommunication and violence.

The point of no return comes when the human-hating ape Koba (Toby Kebbell) steals an assault rifle and murders two humans with it. Koba then uses the weapon to frame the humans for trying to assassinate Caesar, then takes control of the apes, leading them on a warpath fueled by bullets while Caesar is incapacitated. By mastering man’s greatest deadly invention, apes are truly no different from us.

When “Dawn” was made and released in the early 2010s, two mass shootings in 2012 — the July shooting at the Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado, and at December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. – were much fresher memories. These moments are symptoms of public inertia; the United States has not implemented any restrictive gun controls and deadly shootings have become a repeated occurrence in America. (See data compiled by The Gun Violence Archive.)

“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” opens with a montage of news footage playing against a globe background, showing the simian flu spreading until all the lights on the globe go out. It was already scary in 2014, and is even more so now that we have experienced the global Covid-19 pandemic (fortunately a much less deadly scourge than the monkey flu). By depicting guns as the source of violence, “Dawn” shows another epidemic that went untreated in 2014 and remains unsolved in 2026.