History Main / BadFuture

-->'''Zesty Lewis:''' Meanwhile, criticalism is piling up near the president, who was voted into office for a sixth time [[PresidentEvil primarily because he promised to kill us all]].\\
'''President Performance H. Wilson:''' YOU DON'T NEED A BUNCH OF EMPTY PROMISES! [[OmnicidalManiac YOU NEED TO DIE! DO YOU WANT TO DIE?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! DO YOU WANT TO DIE!?!]] (cheering)\\

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* ''Film/TheSantaClause 3: The Escape Clause'': Happens after Jack Frost tricks Scott into invoking the Escape Clause by wishing he was never Santa so he can become Santa in his place. In this alternate timeline, Scott is still a worker who forces his partners to work on Christmas, Laura and Neil have divorced, Charlie has become a misbelieving delinquent, Carol has moved away, and Frost has converted the North Pole into an amusement park, where he stops the toy deliveries and has people come up there to buy presents and pay to put their children on the nice list.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'', Dave mentally time travels into one of these, which turns out to be [[spoiler:the future if he [[ForWantOfANail fails]] to take a very specific action at the right moment, some years down the line]]. In this future, [[spoiler:Dave himself]] caused a thermonuclear war, Helen is an angry, resentful brain in a tank [[spoiler:because of him]], Mel is in line for the US ''presidency,'' (this is almost the worst part, knowing her) and Dave is fat, balding, cheerless [[spoiler:and not together with Helen.]] Basically, the main trio are estranged, unhappy and more villainous in this future, and [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse also there's been a nuclear war.]]

A Bad Future is one of the most common {{Alternate Timeline}}s and one, who if TimeTravel exist in their [[TheVerse universe]], any stars of a long-running series will surely visit. The heroes are sent into the near future (common intervals are [[ExactlyExtyYearsAgo 5, 10, and 20 years]]), and discover a CrapsackWorld. Usually [[TheBadGuyWins the villain(s)]] [[TakeOverTheWorld have taken over]]. They may even [[FutureMeScaresMe encounter]] ''[[FutureMeScaresMe themselves]]''. 90% of the time the hero(es) will meet LaResistance and/or FutureBadass versions of his friends who were left in the past. Typically they go back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.

* ''Theatre/HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild'', Albus and Scorpio use a time turner to save Cedric's life, as Cedric's father begs them. Unfortunately [[spoiler:they cause him so much humiliation in the process that he joins the Death Eaters and kills Neville, so no one kills Nagini, Voldermort kills Harry and TakeOverTheWorld, and worst of all, Dolores Umbridge once again becomes headmistress of Hogwarts.]]

* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic's review of TheRoom features one ruled by seahorses.

* Played with in the ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' movie ''WesternAnimation/EgoTrip''. Two of Mandark's future selves, Executive Mandark and Overlord Mandark, are responsible for taking over the world and turning it into a wasteland full of dumb people, but we are told from the beginning of the movie that the future was saved, and even see the (happy) ending before the DarkestHour with the empire of Dextopia ruled by Old Man Dexter.

* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' movie ''WesternAnimation/EgoTrip''. Two of Mandark's future selves, Executive Mandark and Overlord Mandark, are responsible for taking over the world and turning it into a wasteland, but we are told from the beginning of the movie that the future was saved, and even see the (happy) ending before the DarkestHour with the empire of Dextopia ruled by Old Man Dexter.

* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' movie ''WesternAnimation/EgoTrip''. Two of Mandark's future selves, Executive Mandark and Overlord Mandark, are responsible for taking over the world and turning it into a wasteland, but we are told from the beginning of the movie that the future was saved, and even see the (happy) ending before the DarkestHour.

!!Other examples

* Subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' movie ''WesternAnimation/EgoTrip''. Mandark takes over the world and turns it into a wasteland, but we are told from the beginning of the movie that the future was saved, and even see the (happy) ending before the DarkestHour.

[[folder:Film — Animated]]

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]

* At the end of the primary phase of ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', Ford Prefect tells the Golgafrinchams (with whom he and Arthur Dent have landed in prehistoric days) that their days as the human race will be numbered in 2 million years when the Vogons destroy Earth.

** {{Bad Future}}s are also really easy to create in the world of ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}''. Didn't run a certain computer virus? [[spoiler: One of your best friends goes crazy about a month ahead of schedule and kills you and your entire team horribly!]] Let an old rival go because you couldn't bring yourself to kill her? [[spoiler: Wind up killed by the demon said rival wanted to fight!]] Made a mistake during [[ItMakesSenseInContext frog-breeding]]? [[spoiler: Somehow wind up ruining everything!]] Due to the sheer ease that players can doom themselves, every session has a player with the ability to manipulate time. Aradia, the troll's Hero of Time wound up with this trope so many times she was able to make an army - which turned out being essential to defeating the Black King.

[[folder:Pinball]]
* ''Pinball/{{Robot}}'' features a RobotWar between the remains of humanity and an army of [[HumongousMecha Humongous]] {{Killer Robot}}s, while once-great cities lie in ruins on the horizon.
[[/folder]]

* Averted in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'' in 2015. The filmmakers stated that they didn't want to just rip off ''Film/BladeRunner'' and wanted to get people out of that sort-of grim mindset, so they portrayed the future as a generally nice place to live, though not perfect, and that any trouble was caused by the people (like Griff) there, not technology. Also, they knew that whatever they showed would likely become [[{{Zeerust}} badly dated or inaccurate]] as the ''real'' 2015 came around, so they just [[RuleOfFunny made it all into jokes]]. The BadPresent, on the other hand....

** The book features [[spoiler: a possible bad future, observed during Aviendha's final tests to become a Wise One. It seems that her descendants become embroiled in a war with the Seanchan Empire, who have acquired gunpowder weapons, conquered Tar Valon and subjugated the rest of the world. Decades or centuries later, the once-proud warrior Aiel have been reduced to scavengers living off the refuse of the Seanchan and their vassals. Rand manages to possibly prevent this by incorporating Aiel in to the new society as an international peacekeeping force.]]

* In Literature/ObsidianMirror, Sarah is from one. She travels back in time to try and prevent it.

* The Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer serial novel, ''The Lost Slayer'' had Buffy make a tactical mistake trying to rescue Giles, then get sent five years into the future, to her older self's body, to see a world where Sunnydale was ruled by vampires--with Giles as their king.

* One of ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'' christmas episodes parodies A Christmas Carol by having the Ghosts of the Past, Present and Future Christmas show the Nerd his never ending cycle of getting tortured by bad games, beginning with his childhood. The last ghost (which turns out to be Dracula from Simon's Quests) shows the Nerd a ''bad future'' in which he continued to complain about games all the way up to the Wii, even starting to enjoy it.