Bugonia's Screenwriter Details the Countless Surprising Twists of the Latest Sci-Fi Film

Bugonia writer Will Tracy has a hazy memory of what transpires in Save the Green Planet!. It's a little surprising, given that he crafted the script for Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest reimagining of the 2003 Korean dark sci-fi comedy. Instead of studying the original script for inspiration, the writer behind his previous work viewed the movie once, jotted down some thoughts, and started the process.

“I’ve only seen Save the Green Planet the one time,” the screenwriter states. “My memory was foggy on the movie in great detail. My aim wasn't to feel like I had to be slavishly following or remaking or paying tribute to someone else's vision. The fairest thing to both films was to have them exist independently.”

While the basic plot of a emotionally troubled man (Jesse Plemons in Bugonia) who abducts a pharmaceutical executive he’s convinced is an alien in disguise is mostly the same in each movie, the variations are significant. To start, the writer rewrote the lead role, originally male in Jang Joon-hwan’s first version, as a woman. (Lanthimos chose his regular partner the actress in the role.) The conclusions differ slightly as well, in the way they address their shared core mystery: Is the character an alien in disguise or not?

The screenwriter believes that answer is a bit irrelevant.

“I wasn't really concerned with the surprise element,” he comments. “I didn't want the film to just be a toy that does one surprise, and then once it does that surprise, it's like: OK, well, what else does this toy do?”

However, he has plenty to say on the topic. The interview with the screenwriter covered Bugonia’s ending and what it all means, along with the ways he and Lanthimos worked together to bring those twists to life.

Spoiler Alert: Complete details follow for the ending of Bugonia.

So is Emma Stone an alien or not an alien?

In brief: Yes.

Just like in Save the Green Planet, the conclusion of this version reveals that Stone’s character, a big pharma CEO named Michelle Fuller, is in fact a royal extraterrestrial in disguise. Once she manipulates her kidnapper Teddy (the actor) into killing himself using her advanced device, Fuller beams back up to her Andromedon spaceship.

The fact that this is unexpected is a testament to her performance. During the 118-minute movie, she maintains suspense through a layered portrayal that may take several rewatches to comprehend entirely.

“She talked a lot about how it was the first time she had to give a performance where she felt she had to be conscious of people viewing it again. How those rewatching are going to perceive,” Tracy says. "She was aware the second time a person watches this movie, They know that I know that I'm… understand?”

He trails off, before continuing, “Thus, her performance needed to reflect this awareness in her acting.”

Creating the aliens and their spaceship

Once the CEO finally does reveal her true nature, we get a quick look of her spaceship and fellow aliens before the film ends. Their vessel has a distinct appearance, which Tracy shares was intended to look like a marine animal while avoiding futuristic aesthetics.

“[Yorgos] was really interested in almost like a jellyfish-inspired shape for the spaceship, something very natural,” he comments.

The goal was for them to seem oddly kind of tribal or primitive.

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

“For the costumes, rather than being advanced, they [were meant to|aimed to] feel unusually somewhat tribal or primitive, and yet also quite ornate and sophisticated, because it's such an intricate and beautiful design on those unusual woven outfits,” the writer states. He adds that Lanthimos “viewed it as being a very ancient civilization. He wasn't into the notion of anything being smooth and metallic, or a hyper-futuristic look.”

The conclusion of the world (or only humanity)

Maybe the most significant change between the new film and the original is that in the first version, the extraterrestrials react to their ruler's abduction and mistreatment by blowing up planet Earth. Bugonia adopts a somewhat more nuanced approach, with its aliens opting to eliminate all human life, while keeping the Earth and its other inhabitants unharmed.

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

In the film's conclusion, we see a sequence of scenes of life across the planet. Every person lie dead where they were located moments earlier, but the Earth keeps spinning. What we, as an audience, are meant to make of these events is open to discussion. Is the ending of Bugonia optimistic or bleak? Are people doomed or worth saving? Would the world be better off in our absence?

The screenwriter isn’t willing to offer a definitive answer either way.

“Certain viewers see it as a very bleak ending, or a tragic ending, a despairing ending,” he states. “Different audiences see it as being a oddly hopeful or positive conclusion. I think there's different ways to read it.”

Bugonia is currently in limited theatrical release at present, with a broader opening on Oct. 31.