Bugonia's Screenwriter Explains the Numerous Unexpected Turns of the New Science Fiction Movie

The film writer Will Tracy barely recalls what transpires in Save the Green Planet!. It's a little surprising, considering he wrote the script for Yorgos Lanthimos’s new reimagining of the original 2003 film. Instead of analyzing the original script for inspiration, the screenwriter behind The Menu watched the film once, took a few notes, and got to work.

“I watched the original the one time,” Tracy states. “I didn’t really remember the film in great detail. I didn't want to feel like I had to be faithfully adapting or remaking or honoring another filmmaker's work. The fairest thing to both films was to have them each stand on their own.”

While the basic plot of a mentally unstable man (Jesse Plemons in the new version) who kidnaps a pharmaceutical executive he’s convinced is an alien in disguise is mostly the same in each movie, the differences are notable. To start, Tracy re-envisioned the executive character, played by a man in Jang Joon-hwan’s original, as a female character. (Lanthimos cast his regular partner Emma Stone in the role.) The endings vary a bit as well, in the way they tackle their central question: Is the character an extraterrestrial or not?

Tracy feels that answer is a bit not the main focus.

“I never was really concerned with the twist aspect,” he comments. “My intention wasn't for the movie to just be a toy that does a single trick, and then once it does that surprise, it's like: Alright, so what's next?”

However, he has plenty to say on the topic. The interview with the writer touched on the film’s ending and its implications, along with the ways he and the director worked together to execute those surprises.

Warning: Complete details ahead for the ending of the movie.

So is Emma Stone an alien or not an alien?

Short answer: Yes.

Similar to in Save the Green Planet, the end of Bugonia reveals that Stone’s character, a pharmaceutical executive named Michelle Fuller, is actually a royal extraterrestrial in hiding. After tricking her captor the unstable man (the actor) into ending his own life using her advanced device, Fuller transports to her Andromedon spaceship.

The fact that this comes as a surprise is a testament to her performance. Throughout the two-hour film, she keeps audiences guessing through a complex portrayal that may require several rewatches to comprehend entirely.

“She talked a lot about how it was the initial instance she had to give a performance where she felt she had to be aware of people viewing it again. How those rewatching are going to think,” Tracy explains. "She was aware the upon a repeat viewing a person watches this film, They know that I know that I'm… you know?”

He trails off, before adding, “So she had to be aware this awareness in her acting.”

Designing the aliens and their spaceship

Once the CEO ultimately shows her true nature, we get a quick look of her spaceship and fellow aliens before Bugonia ends. Their vessel has a distinct appearance, which Tracy shares was intended to look like a marine animal while steering clear of high-tech visuals.

“[The director] was really interested in almost like a jellyfish-inspired shape for the spaceship, something very natural,” Tracy says.

The goal was for them to seem strangely kind of tribal or ancient.

The Andromedons’ clothing is just as interesting as their vessel: bulbous dress-like garments made from large, ropey threads. Again, the aim was to go against conventional science fiction.

“For the costumes, rather than being futuristic, they [were meant to|aimed to] appear unusually kind of primitive or basic, and yet also highly decorative and sophisticated, because it's a very detailed and elegant creation on those strange knit costumes,” the writer states. He notes that the director “thought of it as being a very ancient civilization. He wasn't into the idea of any element being smooth and metallic, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The end of the Earth (or just humanity)

Perhaps the biggest difference between Bugonia and Save the Green Planet is that in the first version, the extraterrestrials respond to their leader's kidnapping and mistreatment by blowing up planet Earth. This adaptation adopts a slightly subtler approach, with its aliens opting to snuff out all mankind, while keeping the Earth and its other inhabitants unharmed.

“What I wanted to achieve in the screenplay was a vision of Earth after humanity,” the writer says.

In the film's conclusion, we see a sequence of scenes of life across the globe. All humans lie dead where they were located just before, but the Earth continues. How viewers, are meant to interpret all this is open to discussion. Does the conclusion of the film optimistic or bleak? Is humanity fated to perish or worth saving? Is the planet be improved without us?

The screenwriter isn’t willing to provide a clear resolution in any direction.

“Certain viewers find it to be a very bleak ending, or a tragic ending, a hopeless outcome,” he says. “Different audiences see it as being a oddly optimistic or happy ending. In my opinion there's different ways to understand it.”

The film is in limited theatrical release now, with a wide release on Oct. 31.