The Screenwriter Explains the Many Wild Twists of Emma Stone's New Sci-Fi Film

Bugonia screenwriter Will Tracy doesn’t really remember what transpires in Save the Green Planet!. It's a little surprising, since he crafted the screenplay for Yorgos Lanthimos’s new adaptation of the 2003 Korean dark sci-fi comedy. 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 says. “I couldn't clearly recall the movie in great detail. My aim wasn't to feel as though I had to be faithfully adapting 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 emotionally troubled man (the actor in the new version) who abducts a business leader he’s convinced is an extraterrestrial hiding on Earth is mostly the same in each movie, the differences are significant. For one thing, the writer re-envisioned the lead role, originally male in the director's original, as a woman. (Lanthimos chose his regular partner Emma Stone in the part.) The endings vary a bit as well, in the way they tackle their shared core mystery: Is this person an alien in disguise or not really?

The screenwriter believes that resolution is somewhat irrelevant.

“I wasn't really focused on the twist aspect,” he says. “I didn't want the movie to just be a gadget that performs one surprise, and then after the reveal, it's like: Alright, so what's next?”

However, he has plenty to discuss on the topic. Our discussion with the writer touched on Bugonia’s ending and its implications, along with the methods he and Lanthimos collaborated to execute those surprises.

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

So is Emma Stone an extraterrestrial or not an alien?

In brief: Yes.

Just like in Save the Green Planet, the end of this version discloses that Stone’s character, a pharmaceutical executive named Michelle Fuller, is actually a royal extraterrestrial in disguise. Once she manipulates her captor the unstable man (the actor) into killing himself using her advanced device, Fuller beams back up to her alien vessel.

The reality that this is unexpected is a testament to Stone’s acting skills. During the two-hour movie, she maintains suspense through a complex portrayal 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. What the repeat viewers are going to perceive,” Tracy says. "She knew the second time a person watches this movie, They know that I know that I'm… you know?”

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

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 Bugonia ends. Their vessel has a unique design, which Tracy shares was meant to look like a marine animal while steering clear of high-tech visuals.

“[Yorgos] was really fascinated by almost like a jellyfish-type design for the vessel, something very natural,” Tracy comments.

The goal was for them to seem strangely somewhat tribal or primitive.

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

“For the costumes, rather than being advanced, they [were meant to|aimed to] feel strangely somewhat tribal or primitive, and yet also highly decorative and not primitive, because it's a very detailed and beautiful design on those strange knit costumes,” the writer says. He notes that the director “viewed it as being a very ancient civilization. He wasn't into the idea of anything being smooth and metallic, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The conclusion of the world (or just humankind)

Perhaps the biggest difference between Bugonia and Save the Green Planet is that in the original Korean movie, the aliens respond to their leader's kidnapping and abuse by destroying the world. Bugonia adopts a slightly subtler approach, with its beings choosing to snuff out all human life, while keeping the Earth and its other inhabitants intact.

“My intention to do in the screenplay was a depiction of the planet after humanity,” the writer says.

In the film's conclusion, we see a series of shots of existence across the planet. Every person are deceased where they were located moments earlier, but the Earth keeps spinning. What we, as an audience, are meant to interpret all this is open to discussion. Is the ending of Bugonia optimistic or pessimistic? Are people fated to perish or deserving of rescue? Would the world be improved without us?

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

“Certain viewers find it to be a very bleak ending, or a sad ending, a hopeless outcome,” he states. “Different audiences see it as being a oddly hopeful or positive conclusion. I think there are various interpretations to read it.”

The film is currently in limited theatrical release at present, with a wide release on Oct. 31.