The Screenwriter Explains the Numerous Unexpected Turns of the Latest Sci-Fi Film

Bugonia screenwriter Will Tracy has a hazy memory of what transpires in Save the Green Planet!. It's a little surprising, considering he crafted the screenplay for Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest adaptation of the original 2003 film. Rather than poring over the source material for inspiration, the screenwriter behind The Menu watched the film a single time, took a few notes, and got to work.

“I watched the original once,” the screenwriter explains. “I couldn't clearly recall the movie in great detail. I didn't want 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 each stand on their own.”

While the premise of a mentally unstable man (the actor 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 notable. For one thing, Tracy re-envisioned the executive character, originally male in the director's original, as a female character. (Lanthimos chose his frequent collaborator the actress in the role.) The conclusions vary a bit as well, in the way they address their shared core mystery: Is this person an alien in disguise or not really?

The screenwriter feels that answer is a bit irrelevant.

“I wasn't really focused on the twist aspect,” he comments. “My intention wasn't for the film to just be a gadget that does one surprise, and then once it does that surprise, it's like: OK, well, what else does this toy do?”

However, he has a lot to say on the topic. The interview with the screenwriter touched on Bugonia’s ending and its implications, along with the methods he and the director collaborated to execute those surprises.

Spoiler Alert: Full spoilers follow for the ending of Bugonia.

So is Emma Stone an extraterrestrial or not an alien?

Short answer: Absolutely.

Similar to in Save the Green Planet, the end of Bugonia discloses that the CEO, a big pharma CEO named her character, is actually a royal extraterrestrial in hiding. After tricking her kidnapper the unstable man (the actor) into killing himself using her teleportation technology, she beams back up to her Andromedon spaceship.

The reality that this comes as a surprise is a testament to her performance. During the two-hour movie, she maintains suspense through a complex performance that may require multiple viewings to comprehend entirely.

“She frequently discussed 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 think,” Tracy says. "She knew the upon a repeat viewing someone sees this movie, They know that I know that I'm… you know?”

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

Creating the Andromedons and their vessel

After the CEO finally does reveal her true nature, we get a quick look of her spaceship and other extraterrestrials before the film concludes. Their vessel has a distinct appearance, which the writer shares was meant to look like a sea creature while steering clear of high-tech visuals.

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

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

The Andromedons’ attire is just as interesting as their ship: bulbous robes made from large, ropey threads. Again, the aim was to defy sci-fi movie tradition.

“Regarding the attire, rather than being advanced, they [were meant to|aimed to] feel unusually kind of primitive 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 notes that the director “viewed it as being a very ancient civilization. He disliked the notion of any element being sleek and silver, or some ultra-modern cosmic vision.”

The conclusion of the Earth (or only humankind)

Maybe the biggest difference between Bugonia and the original is that in the first version, the aliens react to their ruler's abduction and mistreatment by destroying planet Earth. Bugonia adopts a slightly subtler method, with its aliens opting to eliminate all human life, while keeping the planet and its remaining creatures intact.

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

In the movie’s final moments, we see a sequence of scenes of life across the planet. All humans are deceased where they were located moments earlier, but the world keeps spinning. What we, as an audience, are supposed to interpret all this is open to discussion. Does the conclusion of the film hopeful or pessimistic? Are people fated to perish or worth saving? Is the planet be better off in our absence?

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

“Some people see it as a extremely dark ending, or a sad ending, a hopeless outcome,” he says. “Different audiences view it as being a strangely hopeful or happy ending. In my opinion there's different ways to understand it.”

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