History Main / BadPresent

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[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/TheTwelve https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/badpresentthetwelve.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:--"bad time to be looking outside, dammit."]]

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* Similarly, the 1940s Creator/MarvelComics heroes in ''ComicBook/AvengersInvaders'' arrive in the aftermath of ''ComicBook/{{Civil War|2006}}'' and briefly think that the Germans won UsefulNotes/WorldWarII as a result.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Convergence}}: The Adventures of Superman'', Superman and Supergirl are (like several other groups from different eras) trapped [[ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} in a domed city]] and trying to escape. However, the two of them learn that even if they do escape, Supergirl is fated to die in ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths.
* ''ComicBook/XMen''
** The central point of Creator/BrianMichaelBendis's ''ComicBook/AllNewXMen'' is that 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'' Franchise/MarvelUniverse.

* The movie ''Film/TimeAfterTime'' has Creator/HGWells and UsefulNotes/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.

* Despite his feelings in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', 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 HYDRA 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 within a fascist regime.]]
* ''Film/TerminatorGenisys:'' When Sarah and Kyle time travel to the future ([[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture Twenty Minutes Into Our Future]]), they are shocked to find that now everyone is completely connected to machines and computers ''all the time''. [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Just like real life]], no one sees anything wrong with revolving your entire life around machines for social media, streaming, mobile gaming, or [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife Tv Tropes.]]

* In Literature/TimeScout, The Accident has devastated the present. The past is available for tourism, but the present is [[AuthorAppeal eating itself]] with gun control and political correctness and organized crime all running rampant.

* 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 1980s. 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 New York City underboss live in ''North Caldwell''), its increasing cooperation with other criminal organizations, and the laxity of certain Mob traditions.

* Downplayed in Creator/JBPriestley's ''Theatre/TimeAndTheConways''. When the play returns to 1919 for the third act, Kay still has some vague memory of the bad present (1937) of the second act. But she doesn't remember it clearly enough to avert it, even if such a thing is possible.

** [[spoiler: Solas, aka the Dread Wolf,]] woke up from his own slumber to find that [[spoiler: sealing away the other elven gods didn't exactly go as planned.]]

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'': Gilgamesh came from an era where the humans of Uruk were part of a [[{{Precursor}} precursor race]] that had greater magic and technology compared to modern humans. After spending ten years in the modern era, he has come to see the present world as corrupt and weak, and wants to use the Holy Grail to create a disaster that would leave only the strongest humans left, with himself to guide them.

* Played with in ''ComicStrip/{{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".]]

* ''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.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'': In "Time Trap!", the Loud kids go time-traveling, accidentally ruin their parents' wedding, and go back to the present to find a Royal Woods that is essentially this. Their parents are now {{Child Hater}}s who don't have any kids (or pets), Chandler is now the leader of Lincoln's friend group, and Chunk now works at a dumpster. That being said, it's somewhat zigzagged: Flip now sells healthy foods and goes by his real name, Phillip, and Mr. Grouse now looks younger and healthier.

* [[Creator/KarolinaZebrowska Karolina Żebrowska]]: In "adventures of a dissatisfied Victorian time traveller", a lady from the Victorian era travels to 2020. She finds everything--from the architecture to the fact people seem to be in their underwear--disappointing.

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[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''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 thought is that he has just fallen in Hell.

* The age 1000 of ''Videogame/DragonBallOnline'' is a bad present for the Future Trunks from [[Franchise/DragonBall the main series]] due to the Earth being overrun by monsters, two separate factions trying to TakeOverTheWorld and an ever present threat of invasion by remnants of Freeza's planet trade federation and King Kold's empire. On the other hand, the future isn't any better due to it being inhabited by the Time Breakers who want to make ''everything'' worse by [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight making wrong what once went right]].
* [[LivingRelic 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 primitives.

* ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'': A demon [[spoiler: named Succoria]] travels from an ancient past full of magic where humans and demons are fighting to an industrialized present where demons are gone and humanity thrives on technology. From this demon's perspective, this human-run present is a ''very'' [[DespairEventHorizon depressingly bad present]].

Usually, to prevent [[StatusQuoIsGod changes to the status quo]], there'll be a YouCantFightFate {{Aesop}} and actions to the contrary will result in [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight Setting Wrong What Once Went Right]], possibly resulting in a TerminatorTwosome.

-->'''Dangly Deever:''' Has everyone forgotten about niceness and caring?
-->'''Sam:''' I'm afraid they went out of fashion, right along poodle skirts and funding for the arts.

* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica''. Every incarnation uses this trope to some degree or another, but [[ComicBook/UltimateMarvel Ultimate Cap]] is probably the most apparent. At the same time, however, Steve will be the first to admit if something's improved.

* In one arc in the ''Franchise/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.

* In ''ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow'', when the Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes visits Franchise/{{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.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Convergence}}: The Adventures of Superman'', Superman and Supergirl are (like several other groups from different eras) trapped [[Comicbook/{{Brainiac}} in a domed city]] and trying to escape. However, the two of them learn that even if they do escape, Supergirl is fated to die in ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths.

** The central point of Creator/BrianMichaelBendis's ''All-New 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'' Franchise/MarvelUniverse.

* This is the premise of ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast''. Unlike the [[Comicbook/DaysOfFuturePast original comic book story]], the "BadFuture" is actually the present day timeline and Comicbook/{{Wolverine}} is sent into the past to avert it.

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

* ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'': A demon [[spoiler: named Succoria]] travels from an ancient past full of magic where humans and demons are fighting to an industrialized present where demons are gone and humanity thrives on technology. From this demon's perspective, this human-run present is a ''very'' depressingly bad present.