It occurs to me that this year is the 25th anniversary of Kevin Costner’s second-worst movie – The Postman. (His first worst was, of course, the other post-apocalyptic movie Waterworld which was basically Mad Max with jetskis. Although Jeanne Tripplehorn makes the experience worth it.)
The short version is that after the apocalypse, a traveling actor masquerades as a postman from a distant restored federal government to garner himself protection and sustenance. However, he inadvertently inspires a movement to overthrow a warlord and actually restore the government.
The book, by David Brin, was a good bit darker with quite a few changes. Most notably, the book portrays civilization being held back from recovery by fanatical survivalists who adopt a heavily Darwinian (or Malthusian, I suppose) attitude. Survivalists are portrayed as madmen who are glad society has collapsed, embrace the every-man-for-himself world, and will fight to prevent the establishment of any type of restorative process. Also, the nature of and role of men and women is prominent in the book, as one character recruits her own army of women to subvert and manipulate the men, through feminine means, towards the shared goal of her and the postman.
The book also featured more of the day-to-day scrounging and hard-scrabble living that the postman has to go through before he stumbles onto his deceptive new career. There’s a scene in the book where he discovers a cache of high-value items (tooth powder, antibiotics, an AR7, etc.) and is forced to abandon it as bad guys approach. The book describes his anguish as he sees those items get taken by the bad guys when they would have made his life so much better. Good stuff. There are smaller, similar scenes throughout the story that remind you that this is a world where something as simple as a tooth infection can and will kill you.
The book is much less happy ending than the movie but both are still, in my opinion enjoyable. The movie is rather long at almost three hours, but Im cool with that since I’m a sucker for this genre of movie. There are humourous touches in the movie that are absent from the book, and, bizarrely, now-dead rocker Tom Petty appears as himself playing the mayor of a small town of survivors.
The movie still has the theme of townies-vs-warlords that was in the book but the strident and vehement attitude about evil ‘survivalists’ is absent in the movie. The bad guys are not really referred to as ‘survivalists’ but rather as just a rather large organized group of thugs, in the book they are quite clearly called ‘survivalists’ and are portrayed as ear-cutting killing-machines who are one-man armies.
Is it a good movie? No, not really? Is it a fun movie? Well, if your idea of fun is post-apocalyptic living, sure. Is it entertaining? Yes, if you enjoy this genre. I’d watch it if it came up for free on Amazon Prime or I saw it while flipping channels. Would I actually rent it? No. But I would buy the book. Not as great as Alas Babylon or Lucifers Hammer, but still an entertaining read with a little bit of food for thought here and there.
Oh, and according to the book, the events in The Postman take place in the near-future of…2013. I must have missed it.
Those scenes were filmed at Boundary Dam on the Pend Oreille River near Metaline Falls, WA. About 100 miles north of Spokane. We were up there last summer and it’s still a bleak looking place.
I hate to disagree but I actually liked the movie more than the book. The book lost me when the survivalists were the universal bad guys, copping in spades to the media bias of the times. Brin moved way down on my reading list because of this one.
Yeah the movie wasnt the best Costner film, but I can think of a lot worse (Robin Hood for example). It had a good cast, especially the casting of the young wife (Olivia Williams) and Will Patton as General Bethlehem. I also thought it portrayed the likely flavor of post apopolyptic towns and homesteads, several years after the cataclsmic event, well- isolated, but fairly desperate for contact with the outside world, which Costner’s character exploited very well early on. It’s also unabashedly patriotic- and I’m a sucker for patriotic movies.
the best part was when they were going to show a war film on movie night to the mad max crowd and the opening credits were met with boo’s and thumbs down, they switched to the sound of music and everyone cheered.
I have become hyper critical of a lot of movie and television productions. Maybe being a salty and grumpy old geezer tarnished my view points. I do however glean kernels of information and wisdom from just about every end product. The script writers and director/actors generally do some valid research and attempt to accurately portray real circumstances to support the plot line or subject matter of the film product. Many half century old westerns or war films will have many scenes or actions that are usefull Intel to us like minded individuals. When you pull off an Audie Murphy level success during the post apocalypse, just state cooly that you learned it from watching movies or television. And of course stay frosty the whole time.
I’ve never forgotten his anguish over losing the supplies. It impressed me in my endless apocalyptic reading addiction. Just re-watched the movie a few months ago. Down right cheerful compared to modern fare like The Road.
Speaking of Costner, he was seen hiking with a couple of folk’s earlier this week on Mt. Sentinel (AKA Mt. Woody). For those not local, this is east of the University of Montana in Missoula. Taking a break from filming season 5 of Yellowstone no doubt.
Waterworld wasn’t a total waste! The gun rental business bought two Glock G-18’s for it, and I got to do some training on one of them back in ’97. Loved that crowd control setting!
An FFL in Utah bought both of them, among other toys, when the County of LA forced all the local movie gun rental companies to divest themselves of everything that wasn’t essentially cowboy gear around ’99. Ever notice that all tv and film productions show a Canadian location if they use any weapons newer than the wild west age? Those idiots drove away a LOT of Hollywood business with their asinine anti-gun BS. The rental companies were going to be hit with a $500/month/magazine fee for anything over the CA standard of 10 rounds.
I found it instructive that when Hollywood people went to the LA council and pointed out how much damage they were going to do with the first version of the law, they went back and deliberately made it worse. They didn’t care that they were going to put a lot of local people out of a job, by forcing most films and tv shows to relocate for any sort of action. IIRC, shows like Stargate moved to Toronto, Canada. They mostly didn’t bother filming any further parts of the shows in LA. It ALL moved.
Then, to add insult to injury, the idiots in Sacramento decided to assess a 10% “success” fee to anyone making $1m/yr, shortly afterward. When they did this in ’00, there were TWENTY EIGHT THOUSAND people in that category! Today, there may be as few as 600 left in the state. They chased out Elon Musk a couple years ago. They raise some really stupid people in CA.
The most ridiculous movie he ever made was Robin Hood. Not even an attempt at an English accent. Let’s just say. Errol Flynn he is not.
Dancing with Wolves was one of those rare movies that I watched once. Could never ever sit through the thing again. It sucked in so many different ways.
Wyatt Warp was okay. He was using his Gary Cooper to portray Warp.
The Untouchables. Hope he thanked God for Sean Connery because he saved that movie.
Bodyguard. Yeah. He did well enough. But really nobody paid him much attention with Whitney Houston also a huge part of that film.
JFK. That sucked. Oliver Stone was trying to out do Platoon and failed miserably. As someone who has researched the Kennedy assassination for more then 40 years they missed a lot. I remember that day like it was yesterday. It was a loser all the way around.
In summation. Costner just isn’t that good. Most of the film’s he has made either had lousy scripts or poor directors. I just think nothing can improve on Costner’s lack of acting ability. Most of his characters are dull. Uninteresting and not really something the audience can sink their claws into. Not one of his efforts has the ability to transport the audience to the time and place of the film. As though when it ends we suddenly find ourselves returned as if we had transited through a portal to the here and now.
You’re not venomous at all. Did he steal your wife or what?
Callin them as I see them. About the only movie I saw him in that was good. Silverado. But then Scott Glenn, Linda Hunt, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover kind of carried that film. Plus the guy who played the Sheriff and Phoebe Cates husband.
I need to watch The Postman again, it’s been too long. Yeah, The Road was BRUTAL. It makes me wonder – if we were in the end now would we know it? I say no. Most societies have no idea when they are at the end.
Brin is Canadian, highly privileged a scientist of the and a creature of the technocratic Left . It colors everything he writes.
He’s still a very good writer for all of that. His 1990 novel Earth predicted the Internet age attention span and remixing of media for example and his Uplift series and the unrelated novel Kiln People are quite good.
The survivalist thing in the Post Man aside from the Canadianism of it made some sense. After things fall apart no one is going to want anything to do with the government . Someone showed up from the Old Government after the mess they created, the hogs will eat well. Also this was the 80’s so the reputation that survivalists are dangerous and anti social was out there. Even as a pretty Right Wing kid whose favorite magazine was Soldier of Fortune , I heard it.