The poem ‘The Fly’, by William Blake, opens with the lines
Little Fly
Thy summers play,
My thoughtless hand
Has brush’d away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
What better way to express the magnificent concept of body metamorphosis than with these words? Especially when it is a physical change conceived by David Cronenberg himself. The poem compares and contrasts the life of a fly with that of a man. In Cronenberg’s cult classic 1986 film ‘The Fly,’ a scientist named Seth Brundle becomes one with a fly in a similar way.
While Blake intended it to be allegorical, Cronenberg took it too literally. Cronenberg’s huge and unforgettable cinematic monster, “Brundlefly,” revolutionized the way body horror was made and watched. But it was not just these factors that contributed to the film’s success; it also had an excellent script and excellent acting from Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.
Chris Walas developed a sequel to the original three years later, in 1989, and it followed the narrative of Seth Brundle’s son, who was also suffering from his father’s illness. With the recent news that Jeff Goldblum has been contacted for another ‘The Fly’ film, we felt it was the perfect time to take a look at the franchise, which consistently ranks at the top of any list of science-gone-wrong films.
So stock up on candy because your sweet tooth will be wailing while you watch this video. Let us get this party started, shall we?
Be afraid. Be very afraid – The Fly (1986)
Directed by David Cronenberg, this epic science-gone-wrong film starred Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle, an ambitious and eccentric scientist who attempts to win the heart of a young and beautiful journalist named Veronica Quaife, played by Geena Davis. Brundle has recently built a teleportation device that works fine with inanimate objects but messes things up when it comes to living organisms or even tissues.
In an attempt to woo her, Brundle offers Veronica exclusive access once his device achieves perfection in teleporting living beings. Brundle successfully teleports a baboon and believes that he has mastered his scientific establishment.
Speaking of the baboon named Typhoon, he was clearly one of the most memorable characters in the film. However, Typhoon was extremely hostile; a wild animal without any training. So, you may imagine the terror and horror of the cast and crew filming with such an animal with superhuman strength. Fortunately for everyone, apart from the animal wrangler, Goldblum, who was 6’4’’ in height, displayed a fair amount of physical dominance over the creature.
Anyway, coming back to the film, Brundle was high on the thrill of success and he attempted to teleport himself. However, unbeknownst to him, a fly had entered the pod with him. And, as one expects, strange things begin to happen to post that. In the following days, Brundle acquires enhanced levels of strength, stamina, and craving for sugar, apart from developing rashes, bristly hair growth, etc.
It wasn’t before long that Brundle started to change into an amalgamation of a human and a fly, a creature that he resorted to calling ‘The Brundlefly’. Once Brundle learned that his device had actually spliced his DNA with that of the flies, he wished to create the perfect family by making Veronica get inside the teleportation device with him.
Previously, Brundle had had sex with her, and she was pregnant with his child. Now he wished to merge with her and his unborn child as one body and three souls, the perfect family, at least, according to him. But would Brundle’s crazed wishes come true?
Although Cronenberg’s film turned out a horror classic and a turning point of sorts in the way the genre films were made, finalizing on the director or even the lead actors was not easy. David Cronenberg was offered the directorial reigns, but he turned it down to make ‘Total Recall’.
Naturally, Tim Burton was asked to direct ‘The Fly’. But before Tim could do anything substantial, Cronenberg had left ‘Total Recall’ and returned to make ‘The Fly’. As we already know, ‘Total Recall’ was ultimately directed by Paul Verhoeven. As far as casting Seth Brundle was concerned, the executives wanted someone like Mel Gibson, Micheal Keaton, Willem Dafoe, John Travolta, but Cronenberg insisted on Jeff Goldblum.
Geena Davis as Veronika Quaife did an amazing job in her own right, but Jeff and Geena were dating in real life at the time, and Cronenberg saw this as a hindrance. Thus, other actresses like Linda Hamilton were considered for the role. Nonetheless, Cronenberg ultimately agreed for Geena when Hamilton turned down the role because of the scene that had her giving birth to a giant maggot.
The film is loosely based on a short story of the same name, written by George Langelaan in 1957 and a film of 1958. However, director David Cronenberg showed his remarkable body horror genius as he upgraded, improved, and improvised his version to limits unknown.
Seth Brundle doesn’t just transform physiologically from a man to a humanoid insect but also develops psychologically. This dual transformation of the body and mind affects the viewers on a deeper level, and one begins to wonder if its soul is human or even his soul has taken a downward plunge towards the gruesome and grotesque.
Like father, like son – The Fly II (1989)
We know exactly how the 1986 film ended, but it gets somewhat tricky to not spoil the ending and speak about the sequel at the same time. Nevertheless, we can tell you about the two alternate endings planned and filmed for the original. So, both these endings had Veronica giving birth to a boy with butterfly wings as a happy ending, something entirely different from what really happened.
Anyway, the second film follows these alternate endings and begins with Veronika who gave birth to larvae in a sac and died of the shock. The sac then opened to reveal a normal baby boy. The boy was adopted by Anton Bartok, the same man who had been funding Seth Brundle’s experiments.
Bartok named Brundle and Veronika’s Martin and kept him in his facility under clinical supervision so that the boy could be studied when the time came. Meanwhile, his scientists were trying to replicate Seth’s teleportation device. They had partially succeeded, and managed to teleport inorganic things but failed to transport living tissue.
For instance, when they tried to teleport a dog that Martin had befriended, it underwent a grotesque mutation and also became aggressive and violent. On the other hand, Martin was showing signs of enhanced physical and mental abilities. When Martin was just five years old, he displayed the physical and mental maturity of a 25-year-old man.
He had genius-level intellect, enhanced reflexes, and didn’t need to sleep to keep going. Bartok learned that only Martin could fix his father’s machine, so he started to lure the boy with a nice bungalow, etc. When that failed, he emotionally blackmailed Martin showing him his parents’ old video clippings.
However, Martin soon started to undergo the same transformative process as his father and discovered that Bartok had been keeping him in the dark about his condition and Seth’s real cause of death. All Martin wanted now was revenge and also an escape from his physiological condition.
This ‘Fly’ was nowhere close to its parent, in terms of memorability. Although competent in parts because of its last 30 minutes filled with glop-oozing and slime-ridden special effects sequences, ‘The Fly 2’ largely fails as a whole. While Cronenberg’s film was inspiring, involving, and interesting with diverse aspects and themes, Chris Walas depended solely on gore to entertain his viewers.
I think they should have just not gone ahead with the sequel because Cronenberg’s film had a definitive beginning and an ending. Having said that, it was an efficient effort to bring out the same buzz that ‘The Fly’ generated, and it can be said beyond doubt that Walas’s film is certainly not for the squeamish.
Interestingly, noted director Frank Darabont co-wrote the film; as you may know, he’s the man behind films like ‘The Shawshank Redemption and ‘The Green Mile, both of which are works of Stephen King. But even this noted director and screenwriter couldn’t do much to save ‘The Fly 2’ from its premature death.
Brundlefly – The Tragic Mutated Scientist – Explored
Prior to his teleportation and subsequent mutation, Seth Brundle used to be a solitary but eccentric scientist. As a child, he suffered from an acute case of chronic motion sickness, so much so that he would vomit even if he cycled.
Eventually, he developed a hatred for vehicles and the usual modes of transportation. In fact, he built the teleportation device in parts because he wanted to find a way of traveling that would discard having to move physically. Little Seth Brundle would grow up to become a noted molecular physicist and earn a doctorate as well.
He also developed a taste for the finer things in life, like Beethoven’s music and playing the piano. In times to come, Brundle would deteriorate from being a fine gentleman to becoming the embodiment of horror. While sharing intimate time with his girlfriend Veronika, Seth had an epiphany.
He realized that his machine didn’t really teleport living tissue. His device reinterpreted living tissue instead of reproducing it. So, Seth reprogrammed his computer and ensured that it was creative when it reintegrated organic tissues. After this point, Seth entered the machine or Telepod due to cinematic reasons, but a fly had entered the telepod along with him.
The Telepod’s computer got confused between the two different life forms, and instead of reinterpreting the fly and Seth separately, it simply fused them together as one entity. Brundle came out of the Telepod as a changed man; he had become stronger, faster, developed a heightened sexual potency, and didn’t feel the need to sleep.
He developed more insectoid traits with time, such as vomiting digestive enzymes on his food before consuming it, an acute need to consume sugar, the ability to climb on walls and ceilings, etc. Once he learned the truth about his teleportation, he deduced that his DNA was now half fly and half-human.
And, the only way to increase the percentage of human DNA in his body from 50% to 75%, was through using the telepod with another human. He soon got to know that his lover Veronica was pregnant with his child, and he intended to merge with her to become one ultimate family. Yet his transformation accelerated after he abducted Veronica. Seth really became an asymmetrical and deformed monster towards the end, when he shed all of his human skin, hair, nails, etc., to reveal the insectoid being growing underneath his skin.
Although Seth Brundle seemed to be loving and caring as a human, his transformation affected him mentally, so much so that he resorted to kidnap the love of his life with the intention of turning her into something like himself. Essentially, Seth’s transformation took place in five stages.
In the first stage, he developed rashes and skin discoloration, which then turned into wounds with sores, lesions, and the development of tiny patches of fly hair. In the third stage, he had deteriorated further, and Jeff Goldblum needed piecemeal prosthetics, prosthetic teeth, wigs, etc. In the next stage, Jeff was made to wear full-body suits and contact lenses, which exaggerated his physical deformities.
In the fifth and final stage, Jeff had turned into ‘Brundlefly’. The prosthetics became more advanced, which had to be controlled using rod-controlled puppets and full-body cables.
What Happened After The Movie?
The comics titled ‘The Fly Outbreak’ are the only places where one can find out what happened after the events of the two films. Martin had recovered from his condition but at the cost of converting the evil Bartok into a fly, as that was the only way out for him. Nevertheless, Martin starts feeling guilty about what he had done and uses Bartok’s lab to conduct experiments on him and find a cure.
In due course of time, Bartok Fly breaks containment and wreaks havoc, melting body parts of several personnel, etc. The comic takes up the theme of a pandemic in which Bartok spreads the Fly Virus, and if not contained in time, it could infect the entire population. There’s also a subtle hint of the virus being a metaphor for AIDS, which was spreading quite fast back in the day.
So, all in all, it’s a fairly decent attempt to carry forward the story but lacks the required depth. I mean, comics are free from cinematic constraints like finding a cast, worrying about special effects, finding a large audience, etc. So, with comics, one can go in any creative direction, and yet, they chose to make it rather typical.
The Unmade Sequel – The Fly 3
While Cronenberg’s film was a cult classic with an impeccable storyline, the same could not be said about Walas’s ‘Fly 2’. However, after the massive success of the 1986 film, a sequel was pitched with the title ‘Flies’. It would have followed Ronnie and her twin sons. There was also a subplot about scientists learning about Seth Brundle’s device and turning it into a cloning device, which explains the plurality of the title.
Seth’s conscience was to be transferred into his computer, and with the use of the cloning device, it would have been transferred into a newly cloned body, hence reuniting Seth and Ronnie. This seems like a fairly stronger story than what we saw in ‘Fly 2’. I think the primary reason why the sequel bombed at the box office and disappointed the fans was that Wales couldn’t get back the original characters from the film.
Without Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum, the film lacked the charm, and people started to feel that it was more of an independent movie than a sequel. Now that we are in an era that is reviving the horror classics of the 80s, there’s hope that something may be done with it.
For instance, consider the 2018 film ‘Halloween’, which retconned quite a few unworthy and unwatchable sequels and presented us the same old intriguing horror painted with modern colors. One may agree that a film like ‘The Fly’ never needed a sequel in the first place, but now that we have a poorly made sequel already, it’s better to remedy the mistake by retconning the events of the sequel and erasing it as a canon. Let us know your thoughts below.
Future of The Fly Movie Franchise
Well, in the early 2010s, Cronenberg himself mentioned at a conference that he had written a script that served as a lateral or an oblique sequel of sorts. While there has been no news on this front, in 2018, Jeff Goldblum mentioned that he would love to come back for another ‘The Fly’ film if Cronenberg was involved.
Of course, he cannot come as Seth Brundle because his end was tragic and grotesque, but maybe he can return as Seth’s grandchild or something. And according to the latest news, Jeff has been contacted again for a reboot or a remake of the film, which is supposed to star a female lead. Do you think it would be a wise move? Do let us know in the comments! and why not finish the video just the way we started it! By completing Blake’s poem.
If thought is life
And strength & breath:
And the want
Of thought is death;
Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.
Blake beautifully ended his poem by saying that if life means the presence of consciousness and thought, death means the absence of it. Likewise, Seth Brundle lost himself, his sanity, and conscience somewhere in his transformation. Although a part of him lived for a while, he was essentially dead long before the climax.