Bugonia's Screenwriter Discusses the Many Surprising Turns of the New Science Fiction Movie

The film screenwriter Will Tracy doesn’t really remember what happens in Save the Green Planet!. This is somewhat unexpected, considering he penned the script for the director’s new adaptation of the original 2003 film. Rather than studying the source material for inspiration, the writer behind his previous work viewed the movie a single time, jotted down some thoughts, and started the process.

“I watched the original once,” the screenwriter states. “My memory was foggy on the movie all that well. My aim wasn't to feel as though I had to be slavishly following or recreating or paying tribute to another filmmaker's work. The fairest thing to those movies was to have them each stand on their own.”

While the basic plot of a mentally unstable man (Jesse Plemons in Bugonia) who abducts a pharmaceutical executive he’s certain is an alien in disguise is mostly the identical in each movie, the variations are notable. For one thing, Tracy re-envisioned the executive character, played by a man in Jang Joon-hwan’s original, as a woman. (The director chose his regular partner Emma Stone in the role.) The endings differ slightly as well, in the way they tackle their shared core mystery: Is this person an alien in disguise or not really?

Tracy believes that answer is somewhat irrelevant.

“I never was really focused on the surprise element,” he says. “My intention wasn't for the movie to just be a gadget that performs a single trick, and then once it does that surprise, it's like: Alright, so what's next?”

However, Tracy has a lot to discuss on the topic. Our discussion with the writer touched on the film’s ending and what it all means, along with the methods he and the director collaborated to bring those twists to life.

Warning: Full spoilers ahead for the ending of Bugonia.

So is Emma Stone an alien or not?

In brief: Absolutely.

Similar to in the original film, the conclusion of this version reveals that Stone’s character, a big pharma CEO named her character, is in fact a royal extraterrestrial in hiding. After tricking her kidnapper the unstable man (the actor) into ending his own life using her advanced device, Fuller beams back up to her alien vessel.

The reality that this is unexpected is a proof to Stone’s acting skills. Throughout the two-hour film, she keeps audiences guessing through a complex portrayal that may require multiple viewings to fully understand.

“Emma frequently discussed how it was the initial instance she had to act where she felt she had to be aware of people viewing it again. What the repeat viewers are going to perceive,” Tracy says. "She knew the second time someone sees this film, They are aware I am conscious of… understand?”

Tracy pauses, before continuing, “Thus, her performance needed to reflect of that in her performance.”

Designing the Andromedons and their spaceship

After Stone’s character ultimately shows her true nature, we get a quick look of her spaceship and fellow aliens before Bugonia ends. Their vessel has a unique design, which Tracy shares was intended to look like a sea creature while steering clear of high-tech visuals.

“[The director] was really fascinated by almost like a jellyfish-type design for the spaceship, something very natural,” he comments.

They should feel strangely somewhat tribal or primitive.

The aliens' attire is just as interesting as their vessel: rounded dress-like garments made from thick, woven cords. Once more, the goal was to defy sci-fi movie tradition.

“For the costumes, instead of being advanced, they [were meant to|aimed to] appear unusually kind of primitive or basic, and yet also highly decorative and not primitive, because it's such an intricate and elegant creation on those unusual woven outfits,” the writer states. He adds that Lanthimos “thought of it as being a extremely old society. He wasn't into the notion of any element being smooth and metallic, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The end of the Earth (or only humankind)

Maybe the biggest difference between Bugonia and Save the Green Planet is that in the original Korean movie, the extraterrestrials react to their ruler's abduction and mistreatment by blowing up the world. This adaptation adopts a slightly subtler approach, with its aliens opting to eliminate all human life, while keeping the planet and its remaining creatures intact.

“What I wanted to do in the script was a vision of the planet after humanity,” Tracy explains.

In the movie’s final moments, we see a series of shots of life across the globe. All humans are deceased where they were standing just before, but the Earth continues. How viewers, are supposed to make of these events is up for debate. Does the conclusion of Bugonia hopeful or bleak? Is humanity fated to perish or worth saving? Would the world be better off in our absence?

Tracy does not wish to provide a definitive answer either way.

“Certain viewers find it to be a extremely dark conclusion, or a sad ending, a hopeless outcome,” he states. “Different audiences see it as being a strangely optimistic or positive conclusion. In my opinion there are various interpretations to understand it.”

Bugonia is currently in limited theatrical release at present, with a wide release on Halloween.