The Dog Stars: one man, one dog, and Ridley Scott’s apocalypse with air miles (trailer).

Ridley Scott is returning to science fiction, which is a bit like hearing the old war god has found his favourite axe under the stairs and is taking it out for a bit of sharpening. His new film, The Dog Stars, is based on Peter Heller’s 2012 post-apocalyptic novel, and the trailer suggests we are not in for the usual shiny future where everyone wears sculpted pyjamas and has an opinion about wormholes. No, this is the other sort of future: flu, isolation, guns, aircraft fuel, and the haunting suspicion that the last decent conversationalist on Earth may be a dog.

Jacob Elordi stars as Hig, a civilian pilot living in the wreckage of civilisation with his loyal canine companion, because even at the end of the world Hollywood understands that the dog must be protected at all costs. Hig has survived a devastating pandemic that has almost wiped out humanity, although, judging by the general tone of the trailer, surviving may have come with the emotional benefits of being locked inside a shed with only trauma and canned beans for company.

Hig’s uneasy partner in not being dead is Bangley, played by Josh Brolin, an ex-Marine survivalist who appears to have taken the collapse of civilisation as confirmation that his entire personality was right all along. Bangley is armed, suspicious, practical and quite possibly the sort of man who thinks empathy is something that gets you eaten by road gangs. Together, the pair have carved out a life in a brutal new world, holding on to an isolated homestead and the fragile comforts of routine, machinery and not being murdered before breakfast.

Then comes the thing that always ruins a perfectly good apocalypse: hope.

A mysterious radio transmission reaches Hig while he is out flying his old Cessna, and suddenly the world may be larger than the perimeter fence and Bangley’s gun cupboard. Somewhere out there, beyond the corpse-fields of civilisation and the scenic ruins of everything humans used to complain about on social media, there may be other people. Better people. Worse people. People who have remembered how to make coffee. People who have forgotten entirely too much. Either way, Hig decides to go looking.

This is very much Ridley Scott country. The man who gave us Alien, Blade Runner and The Martian knows that science fiction works best when the hardware looks useful, dangerous and slightly judgemental. The Dog Stars does not appear to be interested in chrome corridors or cosmic abstractions. It has the texture of dust, worn metal, old engines, bad roads and men who have not enjoyed a genuinely relaxing afternoon since the old world sneezed itself into oblivion.

Margaret Qualley appears as Cima, a young medic and potential sign that Hig’s universe may contain something besides loss, loyalty and armed shouting. Guy Pearce plays Pops, Cima’s father and a former Navy SEAL, which means the apocalypse has apparently kept HR very busy ensuring every remaining settlement contains at least one extremely dangerous older man. Benedict Wong and Allison Janney are also in the cast, giving the film the sort of supporting firepower that suggests Scott is not merely making a two-blokes-and-a-dog wilderness mood piece, though frankly we would probably still watch that.

The appeal here is not just the survival mechanics, though the trailer seems happy to provide its share of aerial danger, hard choices and men glowering at the horizon as if the horizon owes them money. The more interesting thread is whether humanity survives as more than a biological accident. Hig is not simply searching for other people. He is searching for proof that kindness, trust, tenderness and imagination did not die with the shopping centres.

That is what gives The Dog Stars its bite. Post-apocalyptic stories often turn into grim catalogues of who has the biggest gun, the least shampoo and the most suspicious stew. Heller’s original novel had something more lyrical in its bones: grief, friendship, loneliness, absurdity and the stubborn human habit of lighting a candle even when the universe keeps sending invoices for darkness. If Scott can preserve that while also letting planes roar through empty skies, we may have something rather more nourishing than another disaster buffet.

There is, of course, the inevitable modern discomfort of watching pandemic fiction after the world has had a rather too intimate rehearsal. Once upon a time, “global flu wipes out civilisation” felt safely theatrical, like zombies, triffids or politicians keeping promises. Now it arrives with a faint aftertaste of hand sanitiser and badly managed public briefings. That may work in the film’s favour. The end of the world no longer feels abstract. It feels bureaucratically possible.

Here at SFcrowsnest, we always approve of a science fiction film that remembers the future does not have to be clean to be profound. Sometimes it can be scratched, sunburnt, airborne and accompanied by a dog who probably has more moral integrity than the entire surviving human population.

The Dog Stars lands in cinemas in August 2026, assuming civilisation makes it that far. Bring a flask, a tin opener and emotional preparedness for the dog. Especially the dog.