The Writer Discusses the Many Unexpected Turns of the New Sci-Fi Movie

The film writer Will Tracy doesn’t really remember what happens in Save the Green Planet!. That’s a bit of a surprise, given that he penned the script for the director’s new adaptation of the original 2003 film. Rather than poring over the source material for ideas, the screenwriter behind his previous work watched the film a single time, took a few notes, and began writing.

“I watched the original once,” Tracy states. “I couldn't clearly recall the movie in great detail. 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 be judged separately.”

While the premise of a mentally unstable man (the actor in the new version) who abducts a pharmaceutical executive he’s convinced is an extraterrestrial hiding on Earth is largely the identical in both films, the variations are notable. For one thing, the writer re-envisioned the executive character, originally male in the director's first version, as a female character. (The director chose his regular partner Emma Stone in the part.) The endings differ slightly too, in the way they tackle their shared core mystery: Is this person an extraterrestrial or not?

Tracy feels that answer is somewhat beside the point.

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

However, Tracy has plenty to say on the subject. The interview with the writer covered the film’s finale and what it all means, along with the methods he and Lanthimos collaborated to execute those surprises.

Warning: Full spoilers ahead for the ending of Bugonia.

Therefore, is Emma Stone an alien or not?

Short answer: Absolutely.

Just like in the original film, the end of this version discloses that Stone’s character, a big pharma CEO named Michelle Fuller, is in fact alien royalty in disguise. Once she manipulates her kidnapper the unstable man (the actor) into killing himself using her teleportation technology, Fuller beams back up to her alien vessel.

The reality that this is unexpected is a testament to her performance. Throughout the two-hour film, she keeps audiences guessing through a complex portrayal that may take multiple viewings to comprehend entirely.

“Emma frequently discussed how it was the first time she had to act where she felt she had to be aware of people viewing it again. What the repeat viewers are going to perceive,” the writer explains. "She was aware the second time someone sees this film, They are aware I am conscious of… understand?”

He pauses, before continuing, “Thus, her performance needed to reflect this awareness in her acting.”

Designing the Andromedons and their vessel

Once the CEO ultimately shows her true nature, we get a brief glimpse of her spaceship and other extraterrestrials before the film concludes. Their ship has a unique design, which Tracy shares was meant to look like a sea creature while avoiding futuristic aesthetics.

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

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

The aliens' clothing is equally fascinating as their vessel: rounded robes made from large, ropey threads. Again, the aim was to defy sci-fi movie tradition.

“Regarding the attire, instead of being futuristic, they [were meant to|aimed to] appear unusually kind of primitive or primitive, and yet also quite ornate and not primitive, because it's such an intricate and beautiful design on those unusual woven outfits,” Tracy says. He adds that Lanthimos “thought of it as being a extremely old society. He wasn't into the notion of anything being smooth and metallic, or a hyper-futuristic look.”

The end of the Earth (or only humanity)

Maybe 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 takes a slightly subtler method, with its aliens opting to snuff out all mankind, while keeping the planet and its remaining creatures intact.

“What I wanted to do in the screenplay was a vision 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 standing moments earlier, but the world continues. What we, as an audience, are meant to make of these events is up for debate. Is the ending of the film optimistic or bleak? Are people fated to perish or worth saving? Is the planet be better off without us?

The screenwriter does not wish to offer a clear resolution in any direction.

“Some people find it to be a extremely dark ending, or a tragic finale, a despairing outcome,” he says. “Other people see it as being a strangely optimistic or happy conclusion. I think there are various interpretations to understand it.”

The film is in select cinemas at present, with a broader opening on Oct. 31.