Set in the 1990s.
4 works chose this decade. They did not choose it from the same distance, so applying each gap from 2026 scatters them across 23 years — 2027 to 2050.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Dick set the novel 24 years ahead, in 1992. Then his publisher moved it: the 1982 film tie-in rewrote the date to 2021 so the book would sit nearer Blade Runner's, and later editions kept the change. Written in 2026, the year Dick actually chose would fall in 2050.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The present-day story
James Cameron's 1991 sequel dated the end of the world precisely: 1997, 6 years after the film reached cinemas. That was near enough to read as a deadline rather than a fantasy. The deadline came and went, and the sequels have been quietly moving it ever since.
12 Monkeys
The past they were sent to
Gilliam's survivors send Cole back from 2035 to a 1996 that had not happened yet when the film opened. Its past was the audience's next year. Made in 2026, the far end of that journey moves to 2066, and the destination moves with it.
Escape from New York
Carpenter wrote it in 1976, after Watergate, and set it 16 years ahead, in 1997, with Manhattan walled off as the country's only maximum-security prison. Made in 2026, the same reach would put the wall up in 2042 — near enough that the first audience would expect to be around to check.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
James Cameron's 1991 sequel dated the end of the world precisely: 1997, 6 years after the film reached cinemas. That was near enough to read as a deadline rather than a fantasy. The deadline came and went, and the sequels have been quietly moving it ever since.