Bugonia's Screenwriter Explains the Numerous Surprising Turns of Emma Stone's New Sci-Fi Film

Bugonia screenwriter the writer has a hazy memory of what happens in Save the Green Planet!. That’s a bit of a surprise, considering he penned the script for Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest reimagining of the 2003 Korean dark sci-fi comedy. Rather than poring over the source material for inspiration, the screenwriter behind The Menu watched the film once, jotted down some thoughts, and started the process.

“I watched the original the one time,” the screenwriter states. “I didn’t really remember the film in great detail. My aim wasn't to feel like I had to be faithfully adapting or recreating or honoring someone else's vision. The fairest thing to those movies was to have them exist independently.”

While the premise of a emotionally troubled man (Jesse Plemons in Bugonia) who abducts a pharmaceutical executive he’s certain is an alien in disguise is pretty much the identical in each movie, the differences are notable. To start, Tracy re-envisioned the lead role, played by a man in the director's original, as a woman. (The director cast his frequent collaborator the actress in the part.) The endings differ slightly too, in the way they tackle their shared core mystery: Is this person an alien in disguise or not really?

The screenwriter believes that answer is a bit beside the point.

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

Nevertheless, Tracy has a lot to say on the subject. The interview with the screenwriter touched on Bugonia’s finale and what it all means, along with the methods he and the director worked together to bring those twists to life.

Warning: Complete details ahead for the conclusion of the movie.

So is Emma Stone an extraterrestrial or not?

Short answer: Yes.

Just like in Save the Green Planet, the end of this version reveals that the CEO, a big pharma CEO named Michelle Fuller, is in fact a royal extraterrestrial in hiding. Once she manipulates her captor Teddy (Plemons) into ending his own life using her teleportation technology, she beams back up to her alien vessel.

The fact that this comes as a surprise is a proof to her performance. Throughout the 118-minute film, she keeps audiences guessing through a complex performance that may take several rewatches to comprehend entirely.

“Emma talked a lot about how it was the initial instance she had to give a performance where she felt she had to be aware of people viewing it again. How those rewatching are going to perceive,” the writer says. "She was aware the upon a repeat viewing someone sees this movie, They know that I know that I'm… understand?”

Tracy pauses, before continuing, “So she had to be aware this awareness in her performance.”

Creating the aliens and their spaceship

Once Stone’s character finally does reveal her real identity, we get a brief glimpse of her ship and fellow aliens before Bugonia concludes. Their ship has a unique design, which Tracy reveals was intended to look like a marine animal while avoiding high-tech visuals.

“[Yorgos] was really fascinated by almost like a jellyfish-inspired shape for the vessel, something very natural,” Tracy says.

They should feel strangely somewhat tribal or ancient.

The aliens' attire is equally fascinating as their ship: bulbous robes made from thick, woven cords. Again, the goal was to go against sci-fi movie tradition.

“For the costumes, instead of being futuristic, they [were meant to|aimed to] appear unusually kind of tribal or basic, and yet also quite ornate and sophisticated, because it's a very detailed and beautiful design on those strange knit costumes,” the writer states. He adds that Lanthimos “thought of it as being a very ancient civilization. He disliked the notion of anything being smooth and metallic, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The end of the world (or only humanity)

Perhaps the most significant change between the new film and the original is that in the first version, the extraterrestrials react to their leader's kidnapping and mistreatment by blowing up planet Earth. Bugonia adopts a slightly subtler approach, with its beings opting to eliminate all mankind, while leaving the planet and its remaining creatures intact.

“My intention to achieve in the script was a vision of the planet after humanity,” the writer explains.

In the film's conclusion, we see a series of shots of existence across the planet. All humans are deceased where they were standing moments earlier, but the Earth continues. What we, as an audience, are supposed to make of these events is open to discussion. Does the conclusion of Bugonia hopeful or pessimistic? Are people doomed or worth saving? Is the planet be better off without us?

Tracy isn’t willing to provide a definitive answer in any direction.

“Certain viewers find it to be a very bleak conclusion, or a sad finale, a hopeless ending,” he states. “Other people see it as being a oddly hopeful or happy conclusion. In my opinion there's different ways to read it.”

Bugonia is in select cinemas at present, with a broader opening on Halloween.