The Screenwriter Discusses the Countless Unexpected Twists of the New Sci-Fi Movie

The film writer Will Tracy has a hazy memory of what transpires in the original Korean movie. It's a little surprising, considering he crafted the script for Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest reimagining of the original 2003 film. Instead of analyzing the source material for ideas, the screenwriter behind his previous work watched the film once, jotted down some thoughts, and started the process.

“I’ve only seen Save the Green Planet once,” the screenwriter states. “My memory was foggy on the film all that well. I didn't want to feel as though I had to be slavishly following or remaking or honoring another filmmaker's work. The fairest thing to those movies was to have them be judged separately.”

While the premise of a mentally unstable man (the actor in Bugonia) who abducts a business leader he’s convinced is an extraterrestrial hiding on Earth is largely the identical in each movie, the differences are notable. Firstly, the writer rewrote the lead role, played by a man in the director's original, as a woman. (Lanthimos chose his frequent collaborator Emma Stone in the role.) The endings vary a bit as well, in the way they address their central question: Is this person an alien in disguise or not?

Tracy feels that answer is a bit irrelevant.

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

However, Tracy has plenty to discuss on the subject. Our discussion with the writer touched on the film’s ending and its implications, along with the methods he and the director worked together to bring those twists to life.

Spoiler Alert: Full spoilers ahead for the conclusion of the movie.

Therefore, is the character an alien or not?

In brief: Absolutely.

Just like in the original film, the end of this version discloses that the CEO, a pharmaceutical executive named her character, is in fact alien royalty in disguise. After tricking her captor the unstable man (Plemons) into killing himself using her advanced device, she transports to her alien vessel.

The fact that this comes as a surprise is a proof to her performance. During the two-hour 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 act where she felt she had to be aware of people viewing it again. How those rewatching are going to think,” the writer says. "She knew the second time someone sees this movie, They know that I know that I'm… you know?”

He pauses, before adding, “Thus, her performance needed to reflect of that in her acting.”

Creating the aliens and their spaceship

After the CEO finally does reveal her true nature, we get a brief glimpse of her spaceship and other extraterrestrials before Bugonia concludes. Their vessel has a unique design, which Tracy reveals was meant to look like a sea creature while steering clear of high-tech visuals.

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

They should feel oddly kind of tribal or primitive.

The Andromedons’ attire is just as interesting as their vessel: rounded robes made from large, ropey threads. Once more, the goal was to defy sci-fi movie tradition.

“Regarding the attire, instead of being futuristic, they [were meant to|aimed to] appear strangely somewhat primitive or primitive, and yet also highly decorative and sophisticated, because it's such an intricate and elegant creation on those unusual woven outfits,” Tracy states. He notes that Lanthimos “viewed it as being a very ancient civilization. He wasn't into the idea of any element being smooth and metallic, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The end of the world (or just humanity)

Perhaps the most significant change between the new film and the original is that in the original Korean movie, the extraterrestrials respond to their leader's kidnapping and mistreatment by destroying the world. Bugonia adopts a somewhat more nuanced approach, with its aliens opting to eliminate all mankind, while leaving the planet and its remaining creatures intact.

“My intention to achieve in the screenplay was a depiction of the planet post-human existence,” the writer says.

In the film's conclusion, we see a series of shots of existence across the globe. All humans lie dead where they were located just before, but the Earth continues. What we, as an audience, are meant to interpret these events is up for debate. Does the conclusion of Bugonia optimistic or pessimistic? Are people doomed or deserving of rescue? Would the world be better off in our absence?

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

“Certain viewers find it to be a extremely dark conclusion, or a tragic ending, a hopeless ending,” he says. “Other people see it as being a oddly hopeful or happy conclusion. In my opinion there's different ways to read it.”

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