MovieChat Forums > The Postman (1997) Discussion > If you've ever read the book by David B...

If you've ever read the book by David Brin, you will realize that Costner made a decent film from a terrible story.

posted 4 years ago by DarthRoger (867)
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I've read a whole lot of bad reviews for The Postman. I had rented the movie back in 98, more out of curiosity and not seeing anything else on the shelf that looked interesting. Yes, Blockbuster Video was still around then.
The movie surprised me. It wasn't terrible, just overly melodramatic in parts. There is solid acting, decent character development and the sets really gave a post-apocalyptic feel.
Since I thought the movie was decent, I purchased the book and figured it was probably better.

Boy was I wrong.

Brin's book of the same name reads like a feminist treatise. It's truly some of the most woke garbage I've ever read. The main character is some pseudo-intellectual vagabond who befriends people along his travels and those people actually change the world, not him. He's basically an afterthought and a simp! Costner's version of the character is far more empathetic. He's a flawed man who comes to grips that he has to personally act to make the world change, not simply hope it will change. The fact that Costner was able to take Brin's rubbish and turn it into a watchable movie, is credit to his talent as a director.

The Postman is not a perfect movie but it's thoughtful and entertaining, something that the book The Postman was not.

Give it a viewing.

[–] Bateman (534) 4 years ago

I did read Brin's novel, and I 100% agree with your assessment. It read like it was sermonizing me as to how post-apocalyptic fiction is dumb, and so was I for enjoying it... which as I later found out in an interview, was exactly what he intended.

At that point, I went "yeah, well, and a hearty 'fuck you' to you too, Mr. Brin", and have never touched any of his stuff ever again.

[–] DarthRoger (867) 4 years ago

Yeah, Brin is a pretty weird guy. I think he thinks of himself as some futuristic hippie. I've also never read anything else he wrote after reading The Postman. It just reminds us of what separates really good science fiction from really bad science fiction. For every Orson Scott Card or Ray Bradbury, there are literally hundreds of David Brins!

[–] Iffy762 (1331) 4 years ago

I quite liked it, though I seem to recall thinking it was too long. I seem to remember at the time people making fun of it because it elevated the idea of the US Postal Service to some kind of noble vocation and they found that idea ridiculous. But the idea is really not as ridiculous as they claimed. Totalitarian societies would share a feature with postapocalyptic societies that the most important currency is information, because information is what allows people to work together, to build bonds of trust, and to fight back with strength in numbers. If you can control the flow of information, you can control communities. Opposing that, and getting information from one community to another, means that someone has to take great personal risk. There are lots of real examples in history when people have accepted the risk of death in order to get information to people who need it.

[–] DarthRoger (867) 4 years ago

I like that synopsis. Information is power.

[–] thingmakersback (1177) 3 years ago

I agree. Also, I see the fact that the protagonist in the novel is not a hero as a plus.
And... One of the most memorable elements of the novel was the "death" of the A.I.--not in the film at all.

[–] Iffy762 (1331) 3 years ago

Oh, I did not know that about the novel. Really interesting! I was just talking to someone who was saying, in our current situation, we depend on the internet, but the internet is also making things worse because the information flow is divorced from reality. On one side we get Q Anon and "Plandemic", on the other side we are told that protests were "mostly peaceful." To know the truth, someone needs to go out into the real world and send us back a message.