Bugonia's Writer Explains the Numerous Wild Turns of the New Science Fiction Movie

The film writer Will Tracy doesn’t really remember what transpires in Save the Green Planet!. That’s a bit of a surprise, given that he wrote the screenplay for Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest adaptation of the 2003 Korean dark sci-fi comedy. Rather than poring over the original script for ideas, the screenwriter behind The Menu viewed the movie a single time, jotted down some thoughts, and started the process.

“I watched Save the Green Planet the one time,” Tracy states. “My memory was foggy on the movie in great detail. I didn't want to feel like I had to be faithfully adapting or recreating or paying tribute to someone else's vision. The fairest thing to both films was to have them be judged separately.”

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 largely the same in both films, the variations are significant. Firstly, Tracy re-envisioned the lead role, originally male in Jang Joon-hwan’s first version, as a woman. (Lanthimos cast his regular partner the actress in the role.) The conclusions vary a bit too, in the way they address their central question: Is the character an extraterrestrial or not?

The screenwriter believes that answer is a bit not the main focus.

“I never was really focused on the surprise element,” he comments. “I didn't want the film to just be a toy that performs one surprise, and then once it does that surprise, it's like: OK, well, what else does this toy do?”

Nevertheless, he has a lot to discuss on the topic. The interview with the screenwriter touched on Bugonia’s finale and what it all means, along with the ways he and the director worked together to execute those surprises.

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

Therefore, is the character an alien or not an alien?

In brief: Yes.

Similar to in the original film, the end of this version discloses that Stone’s character, a big pharma CEO named her character, is actually a royal extraterrestrial in hiding. After tricking her kidnapper Teddy (the actor) into ending his own life using her teleportation technology, she transports to her Andromedon spaceship.

The fact that this is unexpected is a proof to Stone’s acting skills. During the two-hour film, she keeps audiences guessing through a layered performance that may require multiple viewings to comprehend entirely.

“Emma frequently discussed how it was the first time she had to act where she felt she had to be aware of people viewing it again. How those rewatching are going to think,” Tracy says. "She knew the upon a repeat viewing a person watches this film, They know that I know that I'm… understand?”

Tracy pauses, before adding, “So she had to be aware of that in her acting.”

Creating the aliens and their spaceship

Once Stone’s character finally does reveal her true nature, we get a quick look of her ship and other extraterrestrials before the film ends. Their ship has a unique design, which Tracy shares was meant to look like a marine animal while steering clear of futuristic aesthetics.

“[Yorgos] was really interested in almost like a jellyfish-type design for the spaceship, something quite organic,” he comments.

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

The aliens' clothing is equally fascinating as their ship: rounded robes made from large, ropey threads. Again, the goal was to go against sci-fi movie tradition.

“For the costumes, rather than being futuristic, they [were meant to|aimed to] appear unusually kind of tribal or primitive, and yet also quite ornate and not primitive, because it's a very detailed and beautiful design on those strange knit costumes,” the writer says. He adds that the director “thought of it as being a very ancient civilization. He disliked the idea of anything being sleek and silver, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The end of the Earth (or just humanity)

Perhaps the biggest difference between the new film and the original is that in the original Korean movie, the aliens respond to their leader's kidnapping and abuse by destroying planet Earth. This adaptation adopts a slightly subtler method, with its aliens choosing to snuff out all mankind, while leaving the planet and its remaining creatures unharmed.

“My intention to achieve in the screenplay was a vision of Earth after humanity,” the writer says.

In the movie’s final moments, we see a series of shots of existence across the globe. All humans lie dead where they were standing moments earlier, but the Earth keeps spinning. How viewers, are meant to make of these events is open to discussion. Does the conclusion of the film optimistic or pessimistic? Are people doomed or deserving of rescue? Is the planet be improved in our absence?

The screenwriter isn’t willing to offer a definitive answer in any direction.

“Some people find it to be a very bleak conclusion, or a tragic finale, a hopeless outcome,” he states. “Other people view it as being a strangely hopeful or happy conclusion. I think there are various interpretations to read it.”

Bugonia is currently in select cinemas now, with a wide release on Oct. 31.