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

Question: Well into the movie, Seth's computer, which uses voice recognition, can no longer recognize his voice due to his transformation. How then, did he hook up the three telepods and execute the final sequence if he couldn't get into his computer?

William Bergquist

Chosen answer: He just used the keyboard. We see him typing on it several times before this scene, so the computer is not voice command only.

Grumpy Scot

Question: Why exactly does Brundle experience a feeling of euphoria and strength after his teleportation? Why doesn't he turn into the Brundlefly immediately?

Answer: Brundle's just had all of his atoms separated and then joined back together with a massive influx of electrical energy; certainly that would generate some sort of sensation in cells that have never experienced it before. No reason to believe it couldn't manifest as euphoria and strength. As far as the transformation: Brundle's cells have been put back together with fly DNA in them, but with very little actual fly material, initially. It's reasonable to expect that as his cells die off and regenerate in the usual ways, they are replaced not by human ones, but by human/fly hybrids. As this happens, he becomes gradually more fly-like.

Rooster of Doom

Question: What would have happened if Seth had successfully made the teleportation with Ronnie?

Answer: The deleted 'cat-monkey' scene (where Seth fuses the baboon he used for his experiments with a stray cat) sheds some rather unpleasant light on what would've happened. Essentially the telepods would've merged Ronnie, Seth, their child and the fly DNA together into some manner of chimera-like monstrosity that would most definitely not be what Seth had been hoping to accomplish. As if that wasn't bad enough, the film also implies using the telepods while clothed is a very bad idea (Seth strips naked before both of his attempts), so just imagine how Ronnie, being teleported with her skirt, sweater, stockings and shoes, would've further corrupted whatever resulted.

Answer: Actually, if the teleportation had followed through, then four bodies would have merged into one: Ronnie, Seth, Fly, Baby. Remember, Ronnie was pregnant.

William Bergquist

Question: When Seth teleports a plate with a piece of steak on it, why doesn't the steak merge with the plate?

Answer: Short answer, because the plate doesn't have DNA. Initially the pod was making synthetic versions of what was being teleported, which is why it turned the baboon inside out and made the steak taste funny but inanimate objects appeared OK. It was only later, after reprogramming, that the pods could basically identify tissue to teleport living organisms. However, with the fly present, the pod's programming couldn't distinguish there were two separate living organisms and ended up combining them. It didn't happen with the plate because the pod recognized it as a separate object.

Bishop73

Answer: Something non-biological can't merge with something biological.

lionhead

Except that later on, a portion of the telepod merges with the Brundlefly.

Jukka Nurmi

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

Tawny: Are you a body builder, or something?
Seth Brundle: Yeah, I build bodies. I take them apart, and put them back together again.

More quotes from The Fly
More trivia for The Fly

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