The Writer Explains the Countless Surprising Twists of Emma Stone's Latest Sci-Fi Movie

The film writer the writer doesn’t really remember what happens in Save the Green Planet!. That’s a bit of a surprise, since he wrote the screenplay for Yorgos Lanthimos’s new adaptation of the original 2003 film. Rather than studying the original script for ideas, the writer behind his previous work viewed the film once, jotted down some thoughts, and began writing.

“I’ve only seen the original the one time,” the screenwriter explains. “My memory was foggy on the movie all that well. I didn't want to feel like I had to be faithfully adapting or remaking or paying tribute to another filmmaker's work. The fairest thing to those movies was to have them each stand on their own.”

While the basic plot of a mentally unstable man (Jesse Plemons in the new version) who kidnaps a pharmaceutical executive he’s convinced is an extraterrestrial hiding on Earth is mostly the identical in each movie, the differences are notable. To start, Tracy re-envisioned the lead role, originally male in Jang Joon-hwan’s original, as a female character. (Lanthimos chose his frequent collaborator Emma Stone in the part.) The conclusions differ slightly too, in the way they address their shared core mystery: Is the character an alien in disguise or not?

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

“I wasn't really focused on the surprise element,” he comments. “I didn't want the movie to just be a toy that performs a single trick, and then once it does that surprise, it's like: Alright, so what's next?”

Nevertheless, he has a lot to say on the topic. Our discussion with the screenwriter covered the film’s finale and what it all means, along with the methods he and the director collaborated to execute those surprises.

Spoiler Alert: Complete details ahead for the ending of Bugonia.

Therefore, is the character an extraterrestrial or not an alien?

Short answer: Yes.

Similar to in the original film, the conclusion of Bugonia discloses that the CEO, a big pharma CEO named her character, is actually alien royalty in disguise. After tricking her kidnapper the unstable man (the actor) into killing himself using her advanced device, she beams back up to her alien vessel.

The fact that this is unexpected is a proof to Stone’s acting skills. Throughout the two-hour movie, she keeps audiences guessing through a complex performance that may take multiple viewings to comprehend entirely.

“She 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 watching the movie a second time. What the repeat viewers are going to think,” the writer explains. "She knew the second time a person watches this film, They know that I know that I'm… understand?”

He trails off, before continuing, “So she had to be aware of that in her acting.”

Creating the aliens and their spaceship

Once the CEO finally does reveal her real identity, we get a quick look of her ship and fellow aliens before the film concludes. Their ship has a unique design, which Tracy shares was meant to look like a marine animal while steering clear of high-tech visuals.

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

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

The aliens' attire is just as interesting as their vessel: rounded robes made from thick, woven cords. Again, the aim was to go against conventional science fiction.

“For the costumes, rather than being advanced, they [were meant to|aimed to] feel strangely kind of primitive or basic, and yet also highly decorative and not primitive, because it's a very detailed and elegant creation on those unusual woven outfits,” the writer says. He notes that the director “thought of it as being a very ancient civilization. He wasn't into the idea of any element being smooth and metallic, or a hyper-futuristic look.”

The end of the Earth (or just humankind)

Perhaps the biggest difference between the new film and the original is that in the original Korean movie, the extraterrestrials respond to their ruler's abduction and mistreatment by blowing up the world. Bugonia adopts a somewhat more nuanced approach, with its aliens opting to eliminate all human life, while leaving the planet and its remaining creatures intact.

“My intention to do in the script was a vision of the planet post-human existence,” the writer says.

In the film's conclusion, we see a series of shots of life across the planet. Every person are deceased where they were located moments earlier, but the Earth keeps spinning. How viewers, are meant to make of all this is up for debate. Is the ending of the film optimistic or pessimistic? Are people fated to perish or deserving of rescue? Would the world be better off in our absence?

Tracy does not wish to provide a definitive answer in any direction.

“Some people find it to be a very bleak ending, or a sad ending, a hopeless outcome,” he says. “Other people see it as being a oddly hopeful or positive conclusion. In my opinion there's different ways to understand it.”

The film is currently in select cinemas now, with a broader opening on Halloween.