The Postman was originally a novel by
David Brin. It's a
science fiction novel that starts off promisingly (see above) with reflections on the nature of leadership, popularity, and heroism combined with a pretty gripping story about saving
civilization. But the second half is pretty disappointing; Brin goes into a thematic tangent revolving around weird ideas about
gender roles and comes up with a really stupid ending that doesn't provide a satisfactory conclusion to any of the themes or plots, except of course for the
Indian cyborg subplot.
Kevin Costner took this ambitious but flawed book and turned it into a more ambitious but more flawed movie. He cut out some of the tangents and subplots, but his rewritten ending managed to be even more stupid than the book's original ending. Plus, the movie falls prey to all the typical Costner flaws--long dialogue-free shots of Costner doing simple things, excessive thematizing, and banal messages about relationships. It wasn't a good movie exactly, but I have to admit that I've never understood why it was singled out for vitriolic hatred. The three hours of The Postman were a heck of a lot easier to bear than, say, any 15 minutes of End of Days.