History Main / BadPresent

* ''Literature/SoonIWillBeInvincible'' has a throw-away reference to a group of villains from the 1950s who traveled forward in time to the present to learn from their future selves or successors how they conquered the world. Instead, they found a ''good'' present where superheroes still prevailed, and became so demoralized they returned to their own time and gave up trying.

->''"I went under, the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII world was at war.]] I wake up, they say we won. [[WonTheWarLostThePeace They didn't say what we lost]]."''
-->-- '''[[CaptainAmerica Steve Rogers]]''', ''Film/TheAvengers''

* ''VideoGame/{{Singularity}}'' goes all {{timey wimey|Ball}} with this: [[spoiler:the main character, Nate Renko, is actually a present-day Marine from the year 2010 and that is the era when the game begins. However, upon arriving on the Russian research island facility "Katorga-12", he is thrust backwards in time to 1955 at the epicenter of a massive disaster on the island where he saves the life of a man who almost falls through the floor when it collapses beneath him. That man, unfortunately, is Nikolai Demichev, a Russian scientist who was planning to use the research conducted on the island to rise through the ranks of the Soviet Union. By saving him, Renko allows him to accomplish this and when Renko returns to the present, he finds that he created the BadPresent where Demichev is now High Chancellor and the United States lays in ruins]]. The simple answer here is to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. [[spoiler:You think...]]

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty [=McFly=] figures out he's returned to his own time when he notices a filthy bum sleeping on the park bench. But it doesn't compare to the BizarroUniverse version of the present that Marty returns to in ''Part II'', where Biff has become a corrupt billionaire who's married to Marty's mother, and Hill Valley is turned to a polluted cesspool overrun by crime and biker gangs.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty [=McFly=] figures out he's returned to his own time when he notices a filthy bum sleeping on the park bench.

* [[TheRelic Javik]] from ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' might consider himself in one, despite coming from a time when things were arguably just as bad, if not even worse. He wakes up in the present day to find that the galaxy is still threatened by the same enemy his people fought 50,000 years ago, only now he is quite literally TheLastOfHisKind, and surrounded by [[CatchPhrase primitives]].

* Despite his feelings in ''Film/TheAvengers'', Steve Rogers does admit in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' that there are a few good things about the future, such as better food, no polio, and the Internet. [[spoiler:However, this is later overshadowed by the revelation that the future in which he woke up was essentially railroaded by his old enemy H.Y.D.R.A from within S.H.I.E.L.D. A good chunk of the misery in the world was deliberately engineered by them to make people more amenable to surrendering their freedom for the illusion of security.]]

* Despite his feelings in ''Film/TheAvengers'', Steve Rogers does admit in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' that there are a few good things about the future, such as better food, no polio, and the Internet. [[spoiler:However, this is later overshadowed by the revelation that the future in which he woke up was essentially railroaded by his old enemy H.Y.D.R.A from within S.H.I.E.L.D.]]

* Despite his feelings in ''Film/TheAvengers'', Steve Rogers does admit in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' that there are a few good things about the future, such as better food, no polio, and the Internet.

* The movie ''Film/TimeAfterTime'' has Creator/HGWells and JackTheRipper time travel to the modern world of 1979. Wells expects the "future" to be utopia while Jack explains that [[VillainsBlendInBetter he gets along in it quite well]] and the world is a great place for people like him and an awful one for people like Wells.

** Each time Cap's origin is retold, the level of 'bad' present gets worse. When he was first unfrozen in 1964's Avengers #4, only twenty years had passed. All his friends and loved ones were [OhTheHumanity middle aged]] and had moved on with their lives. Also there were hippies and peace movements. Since major events in the MarvelUniverse remain at fixed points X number of years ago, retellings of his unfreezing now include all his friends and loved ones being dead, and the technology of the world nigh-unrecognizable.

* In ''[[Film/BackToTheFuture Back to the Future: Part II]]'', after the young Biff of 1955 got [[TimelineAlteringMacGuffin Gray's Sports Almanac]] from his older self, Doc and Marty go back to 1985 and discover Hill Valley changed into a {{Dystopia}} / CrapsackWorld where Biff is a CorruptCorporateExecutive married to Marty's mother Lorraine [[spoiler:after he'd murdered George]], with this universe's Marty going to boarding schools and Doc being institutionalized. After learning how Biff originally got the almanac, they travel to 1955 to take the almanac back and destroy it, thereby restoring the original timeline.

* In ''Film/BackToTheFuture'', Marty [=McFly=] figures out he's returned to his own time when he notices a filthy bum sleeping on the park bench.

* ''Series/{{Primeval}}'': A medieval knight slides into 21st century London while chasing a dragon through a time anomaly ([[DinosaursAreDragons actually a dinosaur]] brought by yet another time anomaly). The knight's first though is that he has just fallen in Hell.

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%%* ''VideoGame/DragonBallOnline''
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%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample commented out in accordance to site guidelines. Do not remove this note unless giving proper context to the example.

* Since comic book characters tend to remain publicized for decades, writers ''ADORE'' this trope.

* Despite his feelings in ''Film/TheAvengers'', Steve Rogers does admit in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' that there are a few good things about the future such as better food, no polio, and the internet.

* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica''. Every incarnation uses this trope to some degree or another, but [[UltimateMarvel Ultimate Cap]] is probably the most apparent.

* In one arc in the ''ComiBook/GreenLantern'' comic, Hal Jordan is brought to the present era and learns that not only has Coast City been destroyed, not only is the Corps dead, but the latter was his own doing as part of a massive FaceHeelTurn.

A variation of the BadFuture trope in which the present ''IS'' the future for someone. This is distinct from [[AfterTheEnd stories set in a Bad Future]] because the status quo is LikeRealityUnlessNoted. The story does ''not'' take place in an {{Alternate Timeline}} or {{Alternate Universe}} outside of the usual setting; those are separate tropes. [[AlternateHistory Alternate Histories]] can be compatible, though.

As an example, let's say that we have a story with a Japanese {{Samurai}} that [[FishOutOfTemporalWater arrives in the present from 200 years in the past]]. He'd probably be shocked to learn that Japanese culture has largely been replaced by Westernization, and that Japan surrendered to the United States after UsefulNotes/WorldWar2. Modern citizens of Japan have largely moved on, but someone from an earlier era might see this as their BadFuture.

It is also acceptable if [[CharacterizationMarchesOn something terrible happened to a long-running character]] or someone related to them. A past version of said character learns that a loved one has died, betrayed, or left them, or that they themselves have died [[FateWorseThanDeath or ''worse'']].

Another acceptable version is if a person from the present goes into the past and lets the truth slip. So long as the spirit of the trope is explored, it works just fine.

->''"I went under, the [[WorldWarII world was at war.]] I wake up, they say we won. [[WonTheWarLostThePeace They didn't say what we lost]]."''

As an example, let's say that we have a story with a Japanese {{Samurai}} that [[FishOutOfTemporalWater arrives in the present from 200 years in the past]]. He'd probably be shocked to learn that Japanese culture has largely been replaced by Westernization, and that Japan surrendered to the United States after WorldWar2. Modern citizens of Japan have largely moved on, but someone from an earlier era might see this as their BadFuture.

* Similarly, the 1940s MarvelComics heroes in ''Avengers/Invaders'' arrive in the aftermath of ''ComicBook/CivilWar'' and briefly think that the Germans won WorldWarII as a result.

* In ''ComicBook/TheTwelve'', a bunch of WorldWar2 superheroes get put in statis as they're trying to prevent a Nazi operation. When they wake up (in 2009), they're very disoriented to say the least: one guy can't understand the concept of mixed-race marriages, another tries a career as a humorist relying on offensive stereotypes seventy years out of date, one tries to get to his old job as a journalist (and has never heard of the Internet), one who has [[SuperSenses Super Hearing]] now has to deal with all the wireless broadcasts (phones, TV, radio...), etc.

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* CaptainAmerica is the freaking [[TropeCodifier KING]] of this trope. ''Every'' incarnation of Captain America uses this trope to some degree or another, but [[UltimateMarvel Ultimate Cap]] is probably the most apparent.
* In one arc in the ''Comicbook/GreenLantern'' comic, Hal Jordan is brought to the present era and learns that not only has Coast City been destroyed, not only is the Corps dead, but the latter was his own doing as part of a massive FaceHeelTurn.
* In his title series, {{Comicbook/Nova}} meets his ex-lover Namorita, who is dead in the present, while the two of them are ripped through time. Namorita is blissfully unaware of anything that happens in the future, including the fact that she and Nova were no long a couple long before her death, and that she is one of the parties blamed for the deaths of hundreds of innocents.
* [[ComicBook/{{X-Men}} Magik]] discovered that she would die from the Legacy Virus when she and her team time-traveled to the present. Sadly, if she hadn't time-traveled in the first place, she wouldn't have died, as it was in the present that she was infected with the Virus [[spoiler:by her brother]].
* In the IntercontinuityCrossover ''{{JLA-Avengers}}'' when they discover their {{Silver Age}}y joined universe isn't "real" they get a glimpse of the real two universes, and Hal Jordan & Barry Allen are especially disappointed about being dead, and in Jordan's case learning that he destroyed the Corps. Both still want to fix things though, because that's what they think is the right thing to do.
* In ''TheTwelve'', a bunch of WorldWar2 superheroes get put in statis as they're trying to prevent a Nazi operation. When they wake up (in 2009), they're very disoriented to say the least: one guy can't understand the concept of mixed-race marriages, another tries a career as a humorist relying on offensive stereotypes seventy years out of date, one tries to get to his old job as a journalist (and has never heard of the Internet), one who has [[SuperSenses Super Hearing]] now has to deal with all the wireless broadcasts (phones, TV, radio...), etc.
* Another example from ''DC 2000,'' wherein a villain shows the 1940s era Justice Society members the present day in order to convince them everything's gone horribly wrong.

* In ''WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow'', when the Comicbook/{{Legion Of Super-Heroes}} visits {{Superman}} just before what is likely to be his last battle, they bring ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} with them. Since the story is set post-Crisis (but before the new continuity kicked in), Supergirl is dead in the "present", and Superman tells this version of Supergirl that his Supergirl "is in the past," without specifying that it's not on a mission as the visitor thinks.
* The central point of Creator/BrianMichaelBendis's ''All-New ComicBook/{{X-Men}}'': the original X-Men team are taken to a nightmarish future where mutant relations are at an all time low, Jean's dead, Beast's dying and Scott is [[spoiler: a villain]]. It's the present day, post ''Comicbook/AvengersVsXMen'' MarvelUniverse.

[[folder: Film ]]

* In ''{{Pleasantville}}'', this is done in stark contrast to the idyllic past-set TV show.
** Deconstructed here. The idea being the idyllic past is not so idyllic and we changed for a reason. Everybody "past" and present eventually accepts this.

* In ''[[Film/{{Transformers}} Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'', Jetfire wakes up from a long hibernation and asks Sam Witwicky which side is winning the war. He is ''not'' happy with Sam's answer.
* The movie ''TimeAfterTime'' has Creator/HGWells and JackTheRipper time travel to the modern world of 1979. Wells expects the "future" to be utopia while Jack explains that [[VillainsBlendInBetter he gets along in it quite well]] and the world is a great place for people like him and an awful one for people like Wells.

[[folder: Literature ]]

* ''SoonIWillBeInvincible'' has a throw-away reference to a group of villains from the 1950s who traveled forward in time to the present to learn from their future selves or successors how they conquered the world. Instead, they found a ''good'' present where superheroes still prevailed, and became so demoralized they returned to their own time and gave up trying.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* ''{{Primeval}}'': A medieval knight slides into 21st century London while chasing a dragon through a time anomaly ([[DinosaursAreDragons actually a dinosaur]] brought by yet another time anomaly). The knight's first though is that he has just fallen in Hell.
* A mundane example: In ''Series/TheSopranos'', a large number of Mafiosi are released from long prison sentences throughout the series; Season 4 sees the release of "the class of 2004", a group of New Jersey and New York wiseguys convicted and given 20-year sentences in the big Mob prosecutions of the early 80s. Many of these guys have some issues with the way the Mob works in the 21st century--including its increasing suburbanization (both the Jersey boss and NYC underboss live in ''North Caldwell''), its increasing cooperation with other criminal organizations, and the laxity of certain Mob traditions.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* DragonBallOnline

[[folder: Webcomics ]]

* Played with in ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'', where a time traveler from the heavily {{Magitek}} past arrives in the current feudal world [[spoiler:only to find out it was bringing his date-minder through the time portal that hosed his "future".]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': [[KungFuJesus Avatar Aang's]] hibernation delivers him to a global dystopia: his people have been exterminated in a systematic genocide, the few remaining (friendly) governments are either powerless or isolationist, and incalculable death and suffering have been inflicted on the world during a century-long war. Plus, all his friends are dead [[spoiler: bar one]]. Aside from some mild survivor's guilt, Aang takes everything in stride.

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[[IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] [[IGotARock horrible gifts]].