The Dog Stars

In the new post-apocalyptic film The Dog Stars, a virus has wiped out most of humanity and the survivors eke out a meager existence trying to stay alive. Sound like an oh-too-familiar tale? What if it featured stars like Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, and Allison Janney? And was directed by Ridley Scott and based on a best-selling novel? Would it be enough to pull you in? Should it be? Want more action from Hollywood’s biggest directors? Check out these episodes: Spielberg revisits aliens and alienation in ‘Disclosure Day’ https://www.npr.org/2026/06/12/nx-s1-5854650/spielberg-revisits-aliens-and-alienation-in-disclosure-day 'Gladiator II': Are you not entertained? Still? Again? Some more? https://www.npr.org/2024/11/21/1214380320/gladiator-ii-are-you-not-entertained-still-again-some-more ‘The Odyssey’ is an ancient tale on a modern budget https://www.npr.org/2026/07/17/nx-s1-5895088/the-odyssey-is-an-ancient-tale-on-a-modern-budget Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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• 0:56Speaker 01

  In the new post-apocalyptic film, The Dog Stars, a virus has wiped out most of humanity, and the survivors eke out a meager existence scavenging from the remains of civilization while defending themselves against feral raiders and each other. Now, you're probably thinking to yourself, "That sounds familiar."

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Well, what if we told you it was directed by Ridley Scott and based on a bestselling novel, and then it featured stars like Jacob Elordi, Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, and Guy Pearce? Would it change your mind? Should it? Hmm, I don't know. I'm Aisha Harris.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  And I'm Glen Weldon, and joining us today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is writer and host of the film-spotting podcast movie Deathmatch, Chris Kline. Hey, Chris.

• 1:36Speaker 03

  Delighted to be back on PCHH, Glenn, because I don't want to end up on the damn Geraldo show.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 1:41Speaker 03

  See, you thought I was gonna go Blade Runner or Alien or something, but nope. Phil and Louise, baby. Thelma and Louise.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  All right. And the reason you're doing that is the Ridley Scott of it all, which we will get to. So in The Dog Stars, Jacob Elordi is Hig, a pilot living in the Colorado Rockies who somehow keeps his Cessna flying despite, you know, the end of the world. He and his dog Jasper are holed up in an armed camp with the gruff Bangly, played by Josh Brolin. Hig isn't quite the isolationist that Bangly is, though, so he spends his days doing good deeds for others. One day, a dramatic turn of events leads him to fly west and look for survivors who aren't content to merely survive, who might even be trying to restore humanity. Along the way, he meets folks played by Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce, and a scenery-chewing Alice in Janney. The Dog Stars is based on Peter Heller's novel. It's in theaters now.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Ayesha, tell me, talk to me. What'd you think?

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Well, look, I've heard some people who have been complaining about the fact that we don't have movie stars anymore, and we don't have strong male heroes, and we don't have the old American way of thinking about what it means to be a hero and survive. And I look at them, and I say, "Well, here's a movie that might fit a lot of those things you're looking for." Because this is a movie with Jacob Elordi, who is playing a type of character we've seen many, many times before. He's kind of perfect, not a lot of roughness around the edges, other than the fact that his wife is dead, and that's like his whole thing. And I was fascinated by this because it's post-apocalyptic, but it doesn't really feel post-apocalyptic.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  It hints at these things, but there's not really a lore or like a world that's created around it. It kind of feels like normcore sci-fi. It's like everyone looks very, well, there are Mennonites, but then there are like, you know, Margaret Qualley, who's just like farm woman and industrial, and Guy Pearce, who's farm pops and all these things. And then it ends with like a folksy song as a credits roll. It's fine. Like, I didn't dislike it, but it's the type of movie where I'm just not gonna think about this again a week from now. Like, I will forget I saw this movie. And I kind of wanted something a little bit more. I think Alice in Janney, and we can get back to her, but I think she's like the closest we get to something weird in this movie.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  I wanted more weird.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  That's the word I used.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  So, yeah, that's my takeaway here.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  All right. You heard it here first, listeners. Aisha Harris wanted more lore and more zombies.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Weirdness, weirdness. It didn't need to be lore, it just needed to be weird.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Okay. All right, Chris, Ridley Scott, Ezir Baileywick, what'd you think?

• 4:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, like Ayesha, I noted the fact that this virus has spared only the very hottest of humanity. This is the world when the aging, near-death, superannuated people look like Guy Pearce and Josh Brolin. So, I mean, I really, this was only on my radar because of the Ridley Scott of it all. And as critics, I think we should be very careful about being too effusive or too vague in our opinion. So I am prepared to say, everyone, that of the movies Ridley Scott has made since he turned 80, this is my second favorite.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  It's no The Last Duel.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  But, I mean, it's interesting to me to look at this in the arc of his whole career. I mean, this is a man who is older than Spielberg, older than Martin Scorsese, older than Michael Mann, you know, just to name the directors in his cohort who are still working. But those other three, I think, are working on really personal stuff. And like, we are never gonna see the Ridley Scott version of The Fableman's.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Right? Like Ridley Scott is just, I mean, he made Napoleon, didn't like that very much. I mean Gladiator 2, okay, Denzel was funny, but I mean, I haven't thought about that movie since it ended. This was, you know, work for hire from him, some novel that came across his desk. And it's really only of interest to me in that context, because here's a guy, and I think you actually made this point when you guys were discussing it, I think it was The Last Duel, it was a few years ago, but like how if, you know, if Ridley Scott had retired or died or something at the end of the 80s, we would have felt like we had a pretty solid handle on his identity as an artist.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  And we don't. You know, this is a guy who like got to our old conception, or outdated, or maybe kind of ageist notion of retirement age, and just like hit the gas, you know, started working much faster. And, you know, this is a well-made kind of middling movie. I mean, he's never been an actor's director. He is an outstanding visual storyteller. I don't think anyone could have shot this movie better. But, you know, it's not immersive in the way that Ridley Scott's best films are. And I mean, that's always been the knock on him, is that he creates an environment that's so detailed and rich that it kind of subsumes the story. And when it's a world as unfamiliar as it was at the time, in Alien or Blade Runner, or even like Black Hawk Down, you know, a war movie of a more modern sort that we hadn't really seen at that time, then that's enough.

• 6:34Speaker 03

  And here, the world he's conjuring is so much like so many other things that it kind of seems like a waste of his talents.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm glad you're talking about the choices he's making nowadays, because, look, this didn't hit for me either. In the press materials, Scott has been saying, you know, his goal is always to avoid cliché. So why he chose the post-apocalyptic genre as a medium to do that, it's just beyond me. I mean, look, as a culture, we have been hip-deep, nipple-deep, neck-deep, eyebrow-deep in these stories for years and years now. And of course, there's always a fresh way, and there always is, but this ain't it. This story is so, what you see is what you get, and this screenplay, on a dialogue level, it's so bare bones. It's the kind where characters keep telling each other what kind of world it is. And we're choosing the point of view of Hig.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  There's a virus.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  We ran out of vaccines years ago. Glenn, you remember that. Remember when we ran out of the vaccines?

• 7:27Speaker 03

  You're making my point. This is it.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  But to Ayesha's point, I mean, Hig, this character is drawn so thinly. He seems to have nothing going on, except that he is a good person, capital G, capital P. And God knows, I'm not looking for another anti-hero. That's not the vibe.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  But when we're setting this in a world that is famously about people having to make tough choices, and moral compromises, and living with regrets, and then you give us this one-note boy scout who, even the thing, we do eventually find out that he regrets something, he feels guilty about something, it is not nearly as chewy and troubling as he seems to think it is, because the script is giving him an out. And, Ayesha, again, you're right. It takes about the third act for this stuff to get weird. When they do, it gets fun weird. You're also waiting in a movie like this, inevitably, I think, for like an orgy of violence. We do get more than one, and that's fun, and that's satisfying. But we had to sit through some really on-the-nose dialogue and some very stick-figure, simple motivations from characters.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  This is latter-day Ridley Scott, to your point. I mean, this is House of Gucci Ridley Scott. This is Gladiator 2 Ridley Scott. This is a mighty thin gruel. All right, talk to me more about this, Ayesha. There were some things I could tell you were holding back.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  Well, okay, look.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Well, I want to ask Glenn, when he says, you know, "We've been neck-deep or nipple-deep in this," I'm sorry for interrupting, but I want to know, are you talking about a Jacob Elordi neck or nipple? Because this is a tall guy. Like, let's, let's set some signposts.

• 8:49Speaker 02

  Well, he also said eyebrow-deep, so for any, like, either way, we're submerged.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  I can't even reach Jacob Elordi's eyebrows. I'd need to step on a ladder.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  We're fully submerged.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  That's my point. That's my point, Chris.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Well, here's the thing. I think that the other issue with when it finally does get interesting and weird, it goes by so quickly.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  It really does. I wanted to stay there.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, Alice in Janney is to Dog Stars what Denzel is to Gladiator 2. Like, they bring the eccentricity, they bring the weirdness, they destabilize the movie, they destabilize something that is otherwise pretty much a straightforward, cut-and-dry affair. But at least Denzel is like an actual supporting character, whereas Alice in Janney is just here for the hot second and then doesn't factor in anymore. I also just think, again, the world that is being created around these characters, who are so kind of just very uninteresting, like, we get glimpses, there's these quote-unquote "reapers," they're called, who keep coming and trying to invade their land, because, again, it's post-apocalyptic, so of course, people are like trying to get whatever they can.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  The way these reapers are imagined was baffling to me. Like, one group of them is like a tribe of skinheads who are like tattooed and ravenous and just like bleeding.

• 10:06Speaker 03

  The war boys, the Fury Road war boys.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're just like bleeding, and like, I mean, bleed as in like they're making noises, like very loud and weird, and just like, what is this, 1995? Like, skinheads are the villain?

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Cannibals, and they're so loud.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  And then another attack, like another group of people attack and like, I can't tell if they're trying to insinuate that they're indigenous or like indigenous adjacent because they're wearing kind of more quote unquote, like it just felt very nonspecific and didn't really contribute at all to this idea of like what it means to survive in this era. And so, again, I didn't want more lore. I just wanted more carving out of like what the world is like beyond these central characters who are not that interesting. And, you know, we got that a little bit with Alice and Jenny, but it's just not enough. And, you know, I think that if you're going to make this kind of story, like it's a genre piece. So of course it's going to hit some of the same beats, but like, you gotta give

• 11:03Speaker 02

  us something a little different or something with a little flavor. And it does bother me that like Ridley Scott doesn't seem to want to do that, or the writers don't want to do like, it just seems very unspecific. And I have no problem with genre movies, like they exist for a reason. But if you're going to do that, at least give us something a little bit fun or weird or different to latch on to. And it's just not there. That's not the material we have here. And it's sad.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, we've got a lot more to talk about. We'll be right back after this break.

• 11:34Speaker 00

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• 12:52Speaker 01

  Welcome back. Chris, talk to me. What are you thinking about?

• 12:55Speaker 03

  So I thought a lot about I Am Legend, which is, you know, the Will Smith, I mean, huge, huge hit, right? And I mean, that was adapted from a much older novel. That was not even the first adaptation of the novel of Megaman, I think. You know, and I think that's a really good movie for the first half. And for me, it kind of falls apart when it turns out, oh, other humans have survived. But I mean, that was a movie I was thinking about in the early stages of this one, you know, for obvious reasons. I mean, it's Jacob Elordi and his dog, you know, mournfully surveying the plains and, you know, being sad about what has befallen humanity. And, you know, I think the attempt to differentiate this a little bit comes in the fact that Elordi was not a superhero. I mean, he was a mechanic. You know, whereas the Will Smith character in that movie, like he is also

• 13:38Speaker 03

  the top scientist who is researching the, the origins of this terrible outbreak and, you know, but also a tough guy. And like, he has all of the skills and all the superpowers. And that's probably why that's a much, much more commercial version of this story.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, there is in this film, exactly one scene between Qualley and Elordi that feels like, oh, we're going to dig into these characters now. We're going to go beneath the surface. We're going to make them maybe a little harder to pin down, a little more layered, get a little grit in the gears, right? And then that gets ditched almost immediately. This film's approach to sex is also weirdly chaste and buttoned up.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Did that feel a little Gen Z to you? Like the moment where Qualley could just like, is this, this okay before we cut, which I appreciated.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  I don't, I couldn't put my finger on it, but it's not like a summer blockbuster. It doesn't feel, it's not fun. I mean, there are set pieces and Alice and Jenny is always fun because she can't not be, but like, I can't figure out who this movie is for.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a weird time for it to come out.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  It definitely feels like for a film of this scale, modestly budgeted, you know, we haven't mentioned the locations yet. I mean, this is a film that's meant to take place in Colorado, all shot in Italy, which I thought was interesting. And for a, I don't know if we would call this a presumptive blockbuster, but for a film that definitely has some scale and some big set pieces, like pretty modestly budgeted, certainly less expensive than the last few Ridley Scott films. So I kind of feel like the math on this is all cooked out already, right? Like this movie does not have to have much of a commercial or cultural impact to be a good investment. And, you know, it just feels like this is Ridley Scott's version of a blank check, I guess, where it's like, he doesn't have something that he has been waiting his entire life to put on screen, like say,

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Megalopolis, where like at great creative risk to himself, he's going to do it in his senior years. I think he just wants to keep working and, you know, wants to work with the hot, young stars. And I mean, I admire that. I admire a guy who doesn't want to be idle, you know, who wants to work, but that doesn't, you know, for me as a viewer, as an audience, that's just not reasoned enough to get me there.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's not going to get maybe a lot of people there because, am I right that this kind of snuck up on folks, this movie? Like, I mean, this is a summer film, sci-fi adjacent, directed by Ridley Scott, starring actual movie stars with, as you say, a big but not huge budget. This should have been what people were talking about, no? I mean, like, this didn't feel like the most buzzed about film of the summer. This came out of nowhere for me. Is that just, this is what happens toward the end of a career? Is this what's going on?

• 16:03Speaker 02

  I don't know. I think it's probably a combination of things. I mean, these are stars, but they're not necessarily like, none of them are Zendaya. So it's like, you know, there's only so much that that star power.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  Someone should put Zendaya in a movie this summer. That's, that would be a great idea.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  And actually give her something to do? Yeah, I would love that. Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's a couple of things. I think it's the fact that this is a post-apocalyptic movie and we've had so many of these, especially in the last five, six years, after we kind of experienced very much what this movie is about, which is a virus, which is wiping out a huge chunk of the population. So I don't know if people are exactly clamoring for that kind of thing, unless it's something that's already been sort of established, like The Last of Us or something like that. And then on top of that, I do think that it's just, the movie business is a gamble and we don't know how long, I don't know how long this movie has been in the works. The book came out in 2012. I think it was a hit, but I haven't read the book, so I don't know. You know, these things can take a long time

• 17:01Speaker 02

  to gestate and then eventually get made. And perhaps it's just like, when it went into production, they thought we got a hit. And now it's like, I don't know. Do we want this right now? I don't. And I don't know if audiences are going to either.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. Well, this movie, it's a head scratcher. While you're watching it, it's a head scratcher in terms of its lasting cultural footprint. And this is lesser Ridley Scott. And if that works for you, this is going to work for you. That brings us to the end of our show. Chris Klimick, Aisha Harris, thank you so much for being here and help me scratch my damn head.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Thank you, Glenn. Help to scratch anytime, buddy.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  This episode was produced by Leonard Sherburne and Mike Katz. I've been edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. And Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon and we'll see you all next time.

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