Exactly two decades ago, The Postman tried to deliver

Exactly 20 years ago today, Kevin Costner released his film based on my novel The Postman into theaters. (The Postman is the only science fiction saga to come in second for three successive Hugo Awards; it's in 25 languages around the world.)

I’ve written elsewhere my complex opinions about Costner’s flick… see my essay on the book vs. the movie, which emphasized the positive, in order to help give the maligned and under-appreciated film whatever small boost that I could… 

...but let’s do a capsule summary of the pros and cons, a very personal view of minuses and plusses.

Minus: The Postman hit theaters the very same week as “James Cameron’s silly remake about a sinking boat.” KC’s words, I kid you not! He released it the… same… weekend… as… Titanic. I doubt there is a more wince-worthy example of poor timing in Hollywood history. (And yes, one of these two motion pictures is being feted right now, for its 20^th anniversary. The other hit an iceberg.)

On the plus side: For all its faults, I deem the Postman film to be one of the dozen or so most beautiful motion pictures - both visually and musically - ever made. Costner has a genius eye and ear! Working with cinematographer Stephen Windon and composer James Newton Howard - he created a sensory masterpiece.

Minus: In collaboration with screenwriter Brian Helgeland, the plotting, characters and pacing were terrific for about 2/3 of the show. Alas though, chaos started creeping in, toward the end - a floundering that could have been solved over some beers with … well… maybe a consultant who knows the story pretty well?

Alas, Costner’s behavior toward the original author was inexplicably, unnecessarily brusque and ultimately self-destructive. I never publicly complained – and in fact, KC admitted later that I was a “team player,” trying hard to help promote the film. But I’ve since learned that people noticed. It didn’t help.

Plus: The worst thing you can do to the original author is to betray the core meaning of his or her book. But I have no such complaint! In fact, I was astonished how well Costner and Helgeland conveyed the heart of my story… about a flawed and fretful hero who feels guilt over telling a beautiful lie, in order to survive. A lie that comes true, by reminding other survivors that they were once mighty beings called citizens.

This powerful message - running diametrically and deliberately opposite to every Mad Max cliché - pervades both the book and the film, and KC's “Postman” character essentially is my character, Gordon – perhaps with fewer IQ points, and no name -- but the same soul.

It’s a message that we especially need in these times…and for that one fact, I gladly and openly forgive every complaint! I defend and will always be proud to be associated with this motion picture.

See also: A Reader's Guide to The Postman novel.

Minus: One must simplify for the screen. Costner cut out the ersatz AI computer (“Cyclops”) and the garish sci-fi augments and several other plot elements from the book. Perhaps he expected me to gripe about that, but I agreed with every one of those cuts! (I never got a chance to tell him that.) Alas, though. Perhaps it wasn’t necessary to scoop out and throw away quite so much of the book's brains?

A side gripe: when I visited the set in Arizona… getting eighteen whole words from him… he couldn’t have told an underling to: “Throw a Holnist uniform on this bozo and give him a cameo. Put him in formation with the others in our next scene, and tell him to stay quiet”? That woulda killed him? Ah, never mind that.

A side irony: I never minded the Tom Petty scene. Kinda liked it, in fact. And I miss him.

Okay so we have “gorgeous, big-hearted and dumb.” 
Hey, worse things have happened to a novel that gets filmed! Often lots worse.  (Though Andy Weir and Ted Chiang got to be a whole lot more delighted with their experiences. Yes, including the money.)

What is the sum of all these plusses and minuses? Overall positive. I’d be happy to be a team player in some future movie. Yes, even if I’m sent to the Kids’ Table as the “mere author.”

The capper to all this is my one top benefit from this experience.

More book sales? Well, a bit. But box office flops don’t give books much leg.

No, the most lasting benefit from this experience was something simpler.

It gave me a story to tell folks on airplanes. 

Priceless.

Questions I am frequently asked about… (Part III) Brin Books, The Postman etc.

Continuing this compilation (from Part 1 and Part 2) of questions that I’m frequently asked by interviewers. This time about…

 ==ABOUT DAVID BRIN’S BOOKS==

 --Which of your own novels is your personal favorite? 

That’s like asking: Which of your children do you like best? Glory Season is my brave, indomitable daughter. The Postman is my courageous, civilization-saving son. Earth is the child who combined science and nature to become a planet. The Uplift War…well, I never had a better character than Fiben the earthy-intellectual chimp!

 --Were you happy with the Kevin Costner adaptation of your post-apocalyptic novel The Postman? 

The Postman was written as an answer to all those post-apocalypse books and films that seem to revel in the idea of civilization’s fall. It’s a story about how much we take for granted – and how desperately we would miss the little, gracious things that connect us today. It is a story about the last idealist in a fallen America. One who cannot let go of a dream we all once shared. Who sparks restored faith that we can recover, and perhaps even become better than we were. 

Was The Postman film faithful to this? Well, despite several scenes that can only be called self-indulgent, or even goofy… plus the fact that I was never consulted, even once… I nevertheless came away more pleased than unhappy with what Costner created. Though flawed, it’s a pretty good flick – if you let yourself get into it. One that deals (a bit simplistically) with important issues and is more faithful to the book's inner heart than I expected at any point during the long decade before it was released. 

Costner’s postman is a man of decency, a calloused idealist, not particularly courageous, who has to learn the hard way about responsibility and what it means to be a hero. The movie is filled with scenes that convey how deeply we would miss the little things… and big ones like freedom and justice. In fact, it includes some clever or touching moments that I wish I’d thought of, when writing the book. 

Visually and musically, it’s as beautiful as Dances with Wolves. Kevin Costner is foremost a cinematographer, I will gladly grant him that. Rent and watch it on a wide screen.

Would I have done things differently? You bet! In a million ways. But I didn’t have the 80 million dollars to make it, and in keeping true to the heart of the book, Costner earned some leeway when it came to brains. Anyway, life is filled with compromises. I’d rather look for reasons to be happy. 

I have posted my full response, discussing the book and the movie, on my website: http://www.davidbrin.com/postmanmovie.html 

--Are you planning on returning to the Uplift Universe? 

Yes.  Soon, even!  Next big thing.  Have a look at the Uplift Universe Web Site.

--Can you reveal some of the inspirations behind the Uplift Saga? How did you come up with the idea? 

If we don't find intelligent life in the galaxy, humanity will create it. We might contrive new entities through artificial intelligence. It could happen the American way - by encouraging more and more of us to diversify in new directions, with new interests and passions and quirky viewpoints. And of course, diversity spreads whenever we add new intelligent life forms called our children. 

Then there is the idea of creating other kinds of beings to talk to through some change in the animal species that already exist around us. 

Other authors have poked at this idea before. Cordwainer Smith and Pierre Boulle and H.G. Wells. Boulle’s Planet of the Apes and Wells's The Food of the Gods or The Island of Dr. Moreau, and all other attempts to deal with this topic did stick to just one perspective, however.  Just one dire warning. 

They all  portray the power to bestow speech being executed in secret by mad scientists, then horribly abused by turning these new intelligent life forms into slaves. 

I believe that - partly because of these cautionary tales - that's not what we will do. Because of those self-preventing prophecies, I wanted to show something else instead. What if we try to uplift other creatures with good intentions? With the aim of making them fellow citizens, interesting people, accepting that in some ways they might be better than us? 

Certainly that's worth a thought experiment too? Adding to the diversity and perspective and wisdom of an ever-widening Earth culture? 

 Wouldn't those creatures still have interesting problems? Of course they would!  More complex and interesting than mere slavery.  At least, that is what I hoped to explore. 

For more on Uplift: See Intelligence, Uplift and our place in a big cosmos

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==Return to Part 1: Questions about Writing and Science Fiction

or Part 2: Questions about Science Fiction and Fantasy

Part 3: Questions about the Future and Prediction