The Fly

Trivia: The film's director, David Cronenberg, has a cameo in this film as the doctor who helps Ronnie deliver her maggot baby.

Trivia: Tim Burton was offered the chance to direct.

Trivia: At least 20 different versions of the 'space bug' (Brundle's final mutated form) were produced, many of them bearing a mostly symmetrical design so as to facilitate the building and operating of animatronics and puppets. One by one they were duly turned down until the special effects department finally in frustration came up with a totally unfeasible asymmetrical look that would take months to construct and be an absolute nightmare to work on set. The producers loved it from the first sight and that's what appears in the final film.

Trivia: An extended ending showed Geena Davis dream about giving birth to a baby with butterfly wings. This was cut from the film to emphasize the drama of Seth's death.

Trivia: Two additional deaths for Brundle were proposed in addition to the filmed version where Veronica shoots him with the shotgun. One involved him trying to attack her one last time, only for Stathis to grab the power cable seen trailing from Brundle's telepod-fused body and shove it into a nearby outlet, thereby electrocuting the creature. The other involved Brundle crawling towards Veronica and then expiring from his injuries, sparing her from having to kill him.

Trivia: Originally the steak experiment scene had one additional line of dialogue from Ronnie in which she replied to Seth's declaration of teaching his computer about flesh by quipping "What are you going to do? Read it 'Naked Lunch'?" Cronenberg intended for this to be a little nod to the fact that he was planning to do a film adaptation of 'Naked Lunch' but eventually decided it was too allusive.

Plot hole: The whole problem with the teleporter occurs when fly DNA is mixed in with Seth Brundle's DNA, starting his transformation into the Brundlefly. Brundle is on a hiding to nothing from the word go, and the fly is irrelevant. Humans are a walking talking mass of foreign DNA - we are host to one trillion bacteria all of which has a complete complement of DNA, as do various tiny mites that live in our hair follicles and all sorts of single cell organisms in our gut. If the transporter serves to mix the DNA of all living creatures which are in the transporter pod at the time Brundle would turn into a half-man, half-bacteria. Incidentally, DNA from a bacteria, an amoeba or a hair follicle mite would be just as 'compatible' with human DNA as that from an insect. It's quite a simple chemical, really.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Being as how the bacteria and mites and such were IN or ON Seth, the machine was able to organize those symbiotic relationships accordingly as teleporting one would teleport all. The fly was separate, not touching. The machine was not programmed to anticipate two separated entities and so combined them into one on the other side.

Phixius

We leave behind a vapour trail of bacteria and viruses (among other things) as we walk, in our breath and emanations from pores in our skin, and Brundle isn't trapping any in his clothes as he isn't wearing any. Brundle has an invisible cloud of DNA floating around him in that teleportation chamber and as far as the machine is concerned their DNA has exactly the same status as that of the fly.

We don't know enough about how the machine works to determine how it might differentiate different DNA types. Unexplained science means it's somehow able to do it. Willing suspension of disbelief for the win.

More mistakes in The Fly

Seth Brundle: I think you're making a mistake. I think you really want to talk to me.
Ronnie: Sorry, I have three other interviews to do before this party's over.
Seth Brundle: Yeah, but they're not working on something that'll change the world as we know it.
Ronnie: They say they are.
Seth Brundle: Yeah, but they're lying. I'm not.

More quotes from The Fly

Question: When Seth and Veronica are in bed for the first time and Seth rolled onto something that got stuck in his back (that Veronica had to pull out), what was it?

Bishop73

Chosen answer: I think it was a chip from an old-styled electrical device, like a computer.

kh1616

More questions & answers from The Fly

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