Diving Inside The Bonkers '80s Version Of 'Mad Max: Fury Road'

Have you noticed that a lot of old sci-fi movies take place in the futuristic year of 2021 -- you know, the year that is this one? We've noticed, and we've also noticed that, despite some of these movies possessing a plot seemingly written by a toddler smashing action figures together, they also got a shocking amount right.

So with that, we turn to another film set in this hallowed year of 2021, a dystopian sci-fi fantasy from 1988 known as The Sisterhood, to see if we can keep this streak going. The answer is … sorta. Not really. We'll explain, but first, here's a quick synopsis to catch you up because I'm pretty positive the only one to has ever seen this movie is me and maybe the director after he came down from his binge on mescaline:

 It's 2021 in post-apocalyptic America. There is no central government, only a series of warlords who impose their will with swords and muscle cars. Women are enslaved by men and are helped only by a roving band of female-warriors with special powers known as "The Sisterhood." Think Mad Max: Fury Road but without Max and Furiosa shoots lasers from her eyes.

It's a bad movie, but you knew that the moment you heard the Wilhelm scream coming in during the first second of the trailer. Whether it's good or bad is irrelevant. We're trying to figure out how accurate this is to our current reality, and it's a real stretch to put this in the ranks of Her or Johnny Mnemonic. Yes, men are still super shitty to women, so we can give The Sisterhood points for being an allegory for the patriarchy. Also, nice job on realizing trucker hats would still be in style 2021. It's good to know that Blake Shelton can be on brand even in a world ruled by barbarian warlords.

Otherwise, this movie is all sorts of off. We haven't yet descended into Mad Max: Fury Road-ness, and if we did, there'd be a hell of a lot more guns and a hell of a lot less 1500's era weaponry. Like, even if we ran out of bullets, what happened to all the machetes and other modern hand-to-hand weaponry? Was Medieval Times the only building to be looted during the apocalypse? 

There are no tech examples or world events that can be seen as a window into our current world. It's mostly just a prolonged rescue mission into a generic dude-stronghold with interspersed moments of sword fighting. At best, this movie just predicted the plot of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. So, if like us, you were beginning to wonder, "are we, the denizens of 2021, so predictable that you can grab any old sci-fi movie off the shelf and it'll tell what watch you're wearing?" you can rest assured that isn't the case.

Also, I don't want to spoil anything (but you've had 33 years to watch this, so I'm going to anyway), but at the end of the movie, God descends to Earth and reveals that she's a woman. That, uh … hasn't happened ye--

… Nevermind.

Follow Dan on Twitter to learn more about his upcoming projects and find him on his podcast The Bachelor Zone to hear him talk about The Bachelor like it is a sport. (Because it is.)