Ridley Scott, now 88, has spoken about how his childhood experiences during the Second World War have shaped the apocalyptic visions running through his science-fiction films, including his new release, The Dog Stars. In an interview ahead of the film's release, the director explained that growing up as a "war baby" in Britain in the 1940s and being sent to a devastated post-war Germany left him with lasting images that influence his depictions of ruined, dystopian worlds even today.

Scott recalled being bombed regularly as a child near a railway line, and once witnessing a Heinkel and two Messerschmitts flying low overhead after a bombing run. He described being sent to boarding school in Germany in 1947, aged ten, after his father was posted there with the army, walking past 200 U-boats each morning and seeing cities so devastated they resembled the aftermath of a hydrogen bomb, an experience he called "an apocalypse". He said these memories fed directly into the barren, ruined landscapes seen in films such as The Dog Stars, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, as well as the dystopian visual language he pioneered in earlier works like Alien and Blade Runner. Despite this, Scott has never made a film set specifically during the Second World War itself.