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

The film screenwriter Will Tracy barely recalls what transpires in Save the Green Planet!. It's a little surprising, since he crafted the script for the director’s new adaptation of the original 2003 film. Rather than analyzing the source material for ideas, the writer behind his previous work viewed the film a single time, jotted down some thoughts, and got to work.

“I watched the original once,” the screenwriter explains. “I didn’t really remember the movie in great detail. I didn't want to feel as though I had to be faithfully adapting or recreating or honoring someone else's vision. The most respectful approach to those movies was to have them exist independently.”

While the premise of a emotionally troubled man (the actor in the new version) who kidnaps a pharmaceutical executive he’s certain is an extraterrestrial hiding on Earth is mostly the same in both films, the variations are significant. Firstly, the writer rewrote the executive character, played by a man in Jang Joon-hwan’s original, as a female character. (Lanthimos cast his frequent collaborator the actress in the part.) The conclusions differ slightly too, in the way they address their shared core mystery: Is this person an alien in disguise or not really?

The screenwriter believes that answer is somewhat not the main focus.

“I wasn't really focused on the surprise element,” 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: OK, well, what else does this toy do?”

Nevertheless, he has a lot to discuss on the topic. Our discussion with the writer covered Bugonia’s finale and its implications, along with the ways he and the director collaborated to bring those twists to life.

Warning: Full spoilers ahead for the conclusion of Bugonia.

Therefore, is the character an extraterrestrial or not?

In brief: Yes.

Similar to in Save the Green Planet, the end of this version discloses that the CEO, a pharmaceutical executive named her character, is in fact alien royalty in hiding. After tricking her kidnapper Teddy (Plemons) into ending his own life using her teleportation technology, she beams back up to her Andromedon spaceship.

The reality that this is unexpected is a testament to Stone’s acting skills. During the two-hour movie, she maintains suspense through a layered performance that may take several rewatches to fully understand.

“Emma frequently discussed how it was the initial instance she had to give a performance where she felt she had to be conscious of people watching the movie a second time. How those rewatching are going to think,” Tracy explains. "She was aware the upon a repeat viewing a person watches this movie, They know that I know that I'm… you know?”

Tracy pauses, before adding, “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 brief glimpse of her spaceship and other extraterrestrials before Bugonia ends. Their vessel has a unique design, which the writer reveals was meant to look like a marine animal while avoiding high-tech visuals.

“[Yorgos] was really fascinated by almost like a jellyfish-type design for the spaceship, something quite organic,” Tracy comments.

The goal was for them to seem oddly somewhat primitive or primitive.

The aliens' attire is equally fascinating as their ship: bulbous dress-like garments made from large, ropey threads. Once more, the aim was to go against conventional science fiction.

“For the costumes, instead of being futuristic, they [were meant to|aimed to] appear strangely somewhat tribal 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 says. He adds that the director “viewed it as being a extremely old society. He disliked the notion of any element being smooth and metallic, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The end of the world (or just humankind)

Maybe the most significant change between Bugonia and Save the Green Planet is that in the original Korean movie, the aliens respond to their ruler's abduction and mistreatment by blowing up the world. This adaptation takes a slightly subtler method, with its aliens choosing to eliminate all mankind, while keeping the planet and its remaining creatures intact.

“My intention 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 existence across the planet. All humans lie dead where they were standing moments earlier, but the Earth keeps spinning. How viewers, are meant to make of all this is up for debate. Does the conclusion of Bugonia optimistic or pessimistic? Are people fated to perish or worth saving? Is the planet be improved in our absence?

Tracy does not wish to provide a clear resolution either way.

“Certain viewers find it to be a very bleak conclusion, or a tragic finale, a despairing outcome,” he says. “Other people see it as being a oddly optimistic or happy ending. I think there are various interpretations to understand it.”

The film is in select cinemas now, with a broader opening on Oct. 31.