Bugonia screenwriter Will Tracy doesn’t really remember what happens in Save the Green Planet! That’s a bit of a surprise, considering he wrote the script for Yorgos Lanthimos’ new adaptation of the 2003 Korean dark sci-fi comedy. Rather than poring over the original script for inspiration, the screenwriter behind The Menu watched the movie once, took a few notes, and got to work.
“I’ve only seen Save the Green Planet the one time,” Tracy tells Polygon. “I didn’t really remember the movie all that well. I didn’t want to feel as though I had to be faithfully adapting or remaking or honoring someone else’s vision. The fairest thing to those movies was to have them each stand on their own.”
While the premise of a mentally unstable man (Jesse Plemons in Bugonia) who kidnaps a pharmaceutical executive he’s convinced is an alien in disguise is pretty much the same in both films, the differences are significant. For one thing, Tracy rewrote the executive character, played by a man in Jang Joon-hwan’s original, as a woman. (Lanthimos cast his frequent collaborator Emma Stone in the role.) The endings differ slightly too, in the way they address their shared core mystery: Is this person an alien in disguise or not?
Tracy feels that answer is somewhat beside the point.
“I never was really focused on the twist aspect,” he says. “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?”
Nevertheless, Tracy has plenty to say on the topic. Polygon spoke to the screenwriter about Bugonia’s ending and what it all means, along with the ways he and Lanthimos collaborated to bring those twists to life.
Warning: Full spoilers ahead for the ending of Bugonia.
So is Emma Stone an alien or not?
Short answer: Yes.
Just like in Save the Green Planet, the end of Bugonia reveals that Stone’s character, a big pharma CEO named Michelle Fuller, is actually alien royalty in disguise. After tricking her captor Teddy (Plemons) into killing himself using her teleportation technology, Fuller beams back up to her Andromedon spaceship.
The fact that this comes as a surprise is a testament to Stone’s acting skills. Throughout the 118-minute film, she keeps audiences guessing through a complex performance that may take several rewatches to fully understand.
“Emma 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 watching the movie a second time. What the repeat viewers are going to think,” Tracy says. “She knew the second time someone sees this movie, They know that I know that I’m… you know?”
Tracy trails off, before adding, “So she had to be aware of that in her performance.”
Designing the Andromedons and their spaceship
Once Stone’s character finally does reveal her true nature, we get a brief glimpse of her spaceship and fellow aliens before Bugonia ends. Their ship has a unique design, which Tracy reveals was meant to look like a sea creature while avoiding high-tech visuals.
“[Yorgos] was really interested in almost like a jellyfish-type design for the spaceship, something quite organic,” Tracy says.
They should feel strangely kind of tribal or primitive.
The Andromedons’ clothing is just as interesting as their ship: bulbous dress-like garments 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] feel strangely kind of tribal or primitive, and yet also quite ornate and not primitive, because it’s such an intricate and beautiful design on those strange knit costumes,” Tracy says. He adds that Lanthimos “thought of it as being a very ancient civilization. He wasn’t into the idea of anything being sleek and silver, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”
The end of the world (or just humankind)
Maybe 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 blowing up planet Earth. Bugonia takes a slightly subtler approach, with its aliens opting to snuff out all human life, while leaving the planet and its other inhabitants intact.
“What I wanted to do in the script was a vision of Earth after humanity,” Tracy says.
In the movie’s final moments, we see a series of shots of life across the planet. All humans lie dead where they were standing moments earlier, but the world keeps spinning. What we, as an audience, are meant to make of all this is up for debate. Is the ending of Bugonia optimistic or pessimistic? Is humanity doomed or worth saving? Would the world be better off without us?
Tracy isn’t willing to offer a definitive answer either way.
“Some people find it to be a very bleak ending, or a sad ending, a hopeless ending,” he says. “Other people see it as being a strangely hopeful or happy ending. I think there’s different ways to read it.”
Bugonia is in limited theatrical release now, with a wide release on Oct. 31.