The Fly (1986 film)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The first 20 minutes or so of the movie revolve about Seth not wanting to reveal his investigations to anyone because both his colleagues and financiers would "destroy him". However, any other scientist would have soon found out that transporting any kind of matter, inanimate or not, is still the accomplishment of the century since it would pretty much revolutionize the shipping industry altogether with things such as cargo trucks and boats being relegated to things of the past, singlehandedly getting rid of more than 50% of the carbon emissions in the world, and then some. The fact he is so stable and calculating at the start of the movie yet he never seems to be aware of this is quite mindblowing.
    • Given the implications of his discovery, perhaps it's the transportation industry he should have been afraid would come after him. How many billions would they have stood to lose?
    • There's also the question of why Seth used a baboon as the first biological subject, when testing the transporter. Couldn't he have tested a plant, or a cucumber or something, first? And when he did get to an animal, wouldn't one normally begin with something smaller, like an insect or a rodent?
      • He had tried it on a plant, before he worked out how to make the device operate on living tissue. The results weren't pretty.
    • After they fight about Veronica's discontinuation of a sexual marathon, she snips hairs from Seth's back before he leaves to break a man's wrist and pick up a hooker. The next morning, Veronica is back with her "Be afraid. Be very afraid" line, having determined that the hairs from Seth's back are not human and probably insect with the help of, presumably, one of those 24/7 Instant DNA Labs that were all over back in the 80s.
      • Probably next door to the all night abortion clinic she later visits.
      • An experienced biologist with a microscope could probably provide that information and she is a science reporter.
      • As this troper recalls, no genetic investigation takes place. She was just told that the hairs physically resemble insect hair more than mammal.
    • There is a scene early on where he admits that he has always been afflicted by car sickness. He most likely had the teleportation of people in mind from the start. Shipping would be a bonus.
    • Cronenberg pointed out that there are billions of living things on the human body anyway (mites, bacteria, and so on).
  • Seth Brundle wanted to fuse himself with his girlfriend using the teleporter so that her human DNA would counteract the fly DNA. But wait. All his problems were started by him being fused with a tiny little fly. So why does he need to fuse himself with an entire human to solve them? If a tiny little fly was enough to cause all his problems then a small amount of human tissue should have been enough to do the job, shouldn't it? I'm sure he'd have had a much easier time convincing his girlfriend to give him some blood or at worst a piece of flesh or the end of a finger or toe than convincing her to become fused with him into some kind of freakish composite entity. For that matter even if for some reason he needed a whole person couldn't he have tried to get his hands on a fresh cadaver that had died of natural causes instead? It's worse in the second movie. At least Seth Brundle had limited resources, Martin had access to the resources of Bartok Industries ( well, they probably wouldn't have actually been too eager to help him as they were planning on letting him transform into a Brundle-fly and then doing experiments on him, but he didn't know it at the time). He instantly dismisses the idea of reversing his condition at the expense of somebody else, even though even if for some reason he'd have to merge with a living human to reverse the transformation it shouldn't be impossible to find some brain-dead patient who was about to be taken off life support anyway whose family would permit them to be used as a gene donor before being euthanised.
    • I think Seth was a little,teensy weensy bit COMPLETELY OUT OF HIS FUCKING MIND!!! He had a layer of dead flesh covering a warped, disfigured, horrendously cool looking fly body,he was in no state to be talking rationally. He didn't even want to become human again, he wanted to be one with his lover and his child, and together they would be "More human than I am alone" He was gone, Seth Brundle died long ago. What little else we saw was simply an example of Dying as Yourself
    • Wait... no.. Ok, the problem was that no matter what, in The Fly Brundle was going have a percentage of fly DNA in him. He can't get rid of it. And in his insanity brought about by both desperation and his decaying human mind, he decided that he would fuse with his girlfriend (and baby) to at least reduce the percentage of fly DNA, even if it makes them a singular monstrous entity. And although he was on the right track with the cure, he didn't have enough time to simply swap out his fly genes for normal ones. In The Fly II, Brundle's son managed to perfect said cure which would eventually be used to save himself. As for getting a cadaver or a braindead patient... DUDE. Hospitals tend to keep track of that. Not to mention that they never had time to wait for such things anyway.
    • Couldn't he have just teleported again with a hair or fingernail clipping from before the accident? And if it had to be living DNA, maybe something like a rat or dog would at least have stabilized his body enough to give him time to solve his situation. But what bothers me the most is that no mention was ever made of the many species of bacteria living in the human digestive system and on the skin. I guess "The E. Coli" would not be nearly as frightening of a movie concept.
  • Where the hell did he get those monkeys?
    • Probably the same place he got all the parts for his teleporters--he ordered them through the company he works for without telling them what he was using them for.
      • Fine. But where was Brundlefly getting all of those doughnuts and sugarey stuff? How would he get near a grocery store without anyone noticing a giant half fly roaming around? (Perhaps he stole them from a cop on the street or something?)
        • He probably ordered the food in bulk and had it delivered to his warehouse when he still looked pretty human.
  • Why did he use monkies as his first biological subject? Why not a plant, or a vegetable? If it had to be something alive, would it have been so hard to attain something smaller, like an insect or a rodent?
    • He wanted a complex life-form comparable to a human being, so plants and insects are out. Might make for a neat experiment but it wouldn't get him any closer to his goal of teleporting a person. As for a rodent...you got me there.
  • Why were there only three people involved in this whole story (Seth, Ronnie and Stathis)? It's believable that an eccentric like Seth and a jerk like Stathis would not have any close friends. Maybe Ronnie doesn't have any either. But what about coworkers? Doesn't anyone work in that big office building besides Ronnie and Stathis? What about all of the other scientists that Seth works for? He keeps referring to "we" and "our work" at the begining, as if there are many other scientists who know about his transporter experiments. Why did none of the other scientists get involved with this experiment, or come looking for Seth after he went into hiding in his appartment?
    • As Brundle reveals, he's basically working independently. He confidentially sends a set of system requirements and/or schematics to a variety of subcontracted engineers, and they ship back finished versions of the components he needs. Then Brundle does whatever tweaking is necessary to fit his vision, and assembles the components into Phlebotinium.
  • Where did Seth Brundle get the money for all of the equipment and electricity he'd need to power his lab? And why didn't he have an assistant?
    • Brundle clearly states in the film that all of his work is funded by Bartok Industries, who provide him with everything he desires, and most likely also pay him a salary.

Seth Brundle: I farm bits and pieces out to the guys who are much more brilliant than I am. I say, "build me a laser", this. "Design me a molecular analyzer", that. They do, and I just stick 'em together. But, none of them know what the project really is. So...
Veronica Quaife: Wow! And, uh, the money? Bartok Science Industries Financed this?
Seth Brundle: Hmm-mmm... But they leave me alone, 'cause I'm not expensive. And they know they'll end up owning it, whatever it is.

  • He didn't need an assistant. As stated in this exchange, he didn't even assemble the telepods from scratch. He probably just came up with how to make teleportation work, and put the pods together from "laser, this" and "molecular analyzer, that".

I play cards with J.D. Shelnut, chief of PO-lice! So kiss my ass, you old bastard!

  • Near the end, the guy sure has a lot of control of his muscles and facial expressions despite his body becoming a cocoon for the fly thing.
    • Yeah I've always thought that. His face and everything just drops off, yet moments earlier he was able to move his mouth and eyes etc like normal.
    • I always figured that his outer skin and basic functions (seeing, walking, talking) etc were basically running on fumes by the time he got to his final humanoid stage (Stage 5). His internal mutation was done and it was just a matter of waiting for his outer shell to just shut down so it could be shed and he could take his final form. When his jaw was removed it told his body that the outer shell was finally done and it was time to go into the final phase.
  • Here's a good one: How on Earth did the David Cronenberg version get shown on early-90s, middle-of-Saturday-afternoon WGNTV? I, Prime Evil, distinctly remember seeing bits and pieces of it at 5 years old...the thing had to have been horribly, horribly edited.
  • Okay, first I can see, why would Seth want to perfect his invention before going public, but why didn't Veronica explain to him that a device that can teleport an unliving matter already was enough to make people worship the ground he walks on and bring him money and resourses to experiment on the living one in the clean lab, with assistants and proper safety measures instead of the basement-like place he works in? Especially after she saw the potential risks (monkey). Second, after his condition became apparent, why at no point of the story did anyone of them think about turning for help to other scientists? Yeah, Seth probably knows more about it than anyone, but the more people work to solve the problem the more chances it will be solved and it will be solved faster (Time is a big issue here.) Poor Communication Kills?
    • Brundle probably wanted to perfect the Living Matter issue himself before letting his device run amok in the world, because people would obviously immediately look into that application for it with results potentially even more disasterous than his own. Good point about the post-fly-fusion consulting of other scientists, though.
  • Why didn't Martin Brundle and Beth in The Fly II even consider going to the authorities or the media? Bartok was planning to permit Martin to undergo an unpleasant transformation into Brundle-fly while making no attempt to do anything about his condition and lying to him about the medical treatment he was recieving, and then use him as a guinea pig and presumably perform experiments on him without his consent (and it's implied he won't be treated very well if the mutated dog and what eventually becomes of Bartok after Martin exchanges DNA with him is any indication). That can't be legal. Sure, Bartok Industries could probably afford pretty good lawyers, but it's odd how Martin and Beth never even seem to consider the possibility of trying to get the legal intervention and/or trying to publicize their story to make it impossible for Bartok Industries to just have Martin quietly disappear into their facility never to come out again.
    • It's probably safe to assume that a Megacorp like Bartok Industries has the means to prevent them contacting the media, or stifle/cease coverage of the story if they did.
  • In The Fly II why do they dismiss the teleporter as "the world's most expensive juicer" just because it can't teleport living matter? They act as if the teleporter is useless if it can't transmit living matter. A teleporter that can transmit non-living things only would still absolutely revolutionize freight transportation. Sure, it sucks that you can't send anything alive through it, but that wouldn't stop them from making huge amounts of money from it. Even if the "anything alive you put in it comes out warped or pulped" extends to non-living things derived from living things like wood and paper it'd still be potentially quite useful. It's sort of understandable why Seth Brundle would want to perfect his life's work before trying to market it, but Bartok Industries should have been drooling over the immense commercial possibilities of even the "defective" version of the teleporter.
    • Remember the steak from the first movie? It didn't come out quite right. Logic dictates that all meat and plant products would similarly suffer. This might even extend to wood. A metal transporter might be useful, but we only ever see person sized teleportation tubes. Maybe they can't build bigger ones and keep them stable.
    • Huh? "Can't build a bigger one?" Really?
    • The military would have NUMEROUS applications that a transporter could be use in. In fact...not being able to transport organic matter could be considered an important safety measure given people's nagging habit of doing stupid and foolish things. So Bartok could have obtained a single customer (The Pentagon) made BILLIONS of dollars and not even bothered w/ Martin Brundle.
  • They call it The Fly, but Brundle never even grows wings. Shouldn't it be The Walk?
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