Bugonia's Writer Details the Countless Wild Turns of Emma Stone's New Sci-Fi Film

Bugonia screenwriter the writer barely recalls what happens in Save the Green Planet!. This is somewhat unexpected, considering he penned the script for Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest reimagining of the original 2003 film. Instead of poring over the source material for ideas, the writer behind The Menu watched the film a single time, jotted down some thoughts, and began writing.

“I watched the original once,” the screenwriter says. “I couldn't clearly recall the movie all that well. My aim wasn't to feel like I had to be slavishly following or remaking or paying tribute to another filmmaker's work. The fairest thing to both films was to have them each stand on their own.”

While the premise of a emotionally troubled man (the actor in the new version) who kidnaps a pharmaceutical executive he’s convinced is an alien in disguise is mostly the identical in both films, the differences are considerable. Firstly, Tracy re-envisioned the executive character, originally male in the director's original, as a female character. (The director chose his regular partner Emma Stone in the role.) The endings differ slightly as well, in the way they address their shared core mystery: Is the character an alien in disguise or not?

The screenwriter believes that answer is somewhat irrelevant.

“I never was really concerned with the surprise element,” he comments. “I didn't want the film to just be a gadget that performs a single trick, and then after the reveal, it's like: OK, well, what else does this toy do?”

However, he has plenty to discuss on the topic. Our discussion with the writer covered the film’s ending and what it all means, along with the ways he and the director worked together to bring those twists to life.

Warning: Complete details follow for the ending of the movie.

So is the character an extraterrestrial or not an alien?

In brief: Absolutely.

Similar to in the original film, the conclusion of Bugonia discloses that Stone’s character, a big pharma CEO named her character, is actually alien royalty in hiding. After tricking her captor the unstable man (the actor) into killing himself using her teleportation technology, Fuller transports to her alien vessel.

The fact that this comes as a surprise is a proof to her performance. Throughout the two-hour film, she keeps audiences guessing through a complex portrayal that may require multiple viewings 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 perceive,” the writer says. "She was aware the second time a person watches this movie, They are aware I am conscious of… understand?”

He trails off, before adding, “Thus, her performance needed to reflect this awareness in her performance.”

Creating the aliens and their spaceship

After Stone’s character ultimately shows her real identity, we get a brief glimpse of her spaceship and fellow aliens before Bugonia concludes. Their ship has a unique design, which the writer reveals was intended to look like a marine animal while steering clear of futuristic aesthetics.

“[Yorgos] was really interested in almost like a jellyfish-inspired shape for the vessel, something very natural,” he says.

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

The Andromedons’ attire 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, instead of being futuristic, they [were meant to|aimed to] appear unusually kind of primitive or basic, and yet also highly decorative and not primitive, because it's such an intricate and elegant creation on those unusual woven outfits,” Tracy says. He notes that the director “thought of it as being a extremely old society. He disliked the notion of anything being sleek and silver, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The end of the world (or only humanity)

Perhaps the biggest difference between the new film and Save the Green Planet is that in the first version, the extraterrestrials react to their ruler's abduction and mistreatment by destroying planet Earth. This adaptation takes a somewhat more nuanced approach, with its aliens opting to snuff out all human life, while leaving the Earth and its remaining creatures intact.

“My intention to do in the script was a depiction of Earth post-human existence,” Tracy says.

In the film's conclusion, we see a sequence of scenes of life across the planet. Every person lie dead where they were standing just before, but the world keeps spinning. How viewers, are supposed to make of these events is open to discussion. Does the conclusion of the film hopeful or bleak? Are people fated to perish or worth saving? Would the world be better off in our absence?

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

“Some people see it as a extremely dark conclusion, or a sad finale, a despairing ending,” he says. “Other people view it as being a oddly optimistic or positive ending. In my opinion there's different ways to understand it.”

The film is in limited theatrical release now, with a wide release on Oct. 31.