The Dog Stars.. The Journey to Find the Human
Rim Qasim In his new film *The Dog Stars*, which is scheduled to be released in cinemas in Kuwait and abroad on the 27th of this month, renowned British director Ridley Scott has assembled a star-studded cast to attract audiences, most notably Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, Josh Brolin, and Ridley Scott himself. The film, which blends science fiction with human drama, is set in the future, where humanity struggles to survive in the aftermath of a pandemic that decimates the population. Adapted from the novel of the same name, published in 2012 by author Peter Heller, Scott chose it as his next major project.
Following the end of the world, as in the novel, the story takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of America, where a deadly influenza pandemic has devastated the country and much of the world. We meet the protagonist, Hig (played by Elordi), a former civilian pilot who now lives among the ruins of civilization inside an abandoned aircraft hangar with his dog, Jasper. During this time, Hig encounters Bangley (played by Josh Brolin), a former Marine. While Hig hopes to one day break the monotony of life among the ruins by flying a plane to another place, Bangley strongly opposes the idea of taking such a risk. Hig also meets Sima, a paramedic played by Margaret Qualley. As this newly formed group of survivors strives to stay alive, Hig insists on finding a mysterious wireless broadcast signal coming from somewhere in this post-apocalyptic world, hoping to discover a safe haven and a stable future.
The cast includes other notable names alongside Elordi, Qualley, and Brolin, such as Allison Janney, Guy Pearce, and Benedict Wong. The official trailer offers a glimpse into the trio’s dynamic and Hig’s dream of escaping their situation, as well as the characters played by Janney and Pearce, and also the dog.
The origin of the story clarifies that the novel, which inspired the film, is Peter Heller’s first, beginning nine years after an influenza pandemic wiped out most of humanity. The protagonist, Hig, lives with his old dog Jasper in a small rural airport north of Denver, Colorado, sharing the space with Bangley, an enthusiast of firearms. Hig has lost his wife, who was pregnant with their first child, and all his friends. He dedicates most of his time to conducting daily aerial patrols with Jasper in his 1956 Cessna aircraft, searching for survivors.
On writing, the author told *New Scientist* magazine: “When I started writing the novel, I did not want to plot or outline.” He added: “I have dreamed of becoming a novelist since I was eleven, but after graduating from university, I had to make a living, so I worked writing for magazines. With every story I wrote, I knew the ending, and I knew what would happen next, because it was actually happening. That was journalism. After that, I did not want to know the ending, so I turned to the novel. I grew up loving rowing and flying, and when I began writing, I wanted to launch into a narrative current and follow it to new horizons.”
On the creation of the text, the writer went to a café near his home in Denver, where he invented the name of the protagonist, Hig. From that moment on, it felt to him as if he were sitting across from him by a fireplace on a cold October night, the wind playing with the flames, while Hig recounted what had happened to him years before. Writing with passion and fervor, he said: “Each time, I was surprised, amazed, and shattered by what happened to the character... Tears streamed from my chin onto the café table, while customers thought I was going through a hard time... or that my dog had died. But the truth was that I was completely immersed in the world I was writing, feeling a kind of exhilaration I had never known in my life.”
Both the author and his fictional friend Hig had stories that helped build the novel’s structure, and both were driven by their desire to find any trace of human connection after the pandemic.
The real pandemic
Eight years after the novel’s publication, on a cold day in March 2020, the city of Denver was completely shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That evening, the author said he went hunting in a government park south of the city. The scene was desolate; there was not a single car belonging to another hunter in the dirt parking lot overlooking the river. He added: “I went down to a beautiful stream winding through ancient trees and started casting my line... I was alone, just as Hig is in the novel. As the sun set behind the hills and the evening cooled, a shiver ran through my body, not caused by the temperature drop alone. When I drove back through one of the main streets, I was the only one on the road, while all the shops and businesses on either side had closed their doors... I was searching for life, just as the film’s heroes search for survivors after the pandemic.”
