Revealing mistake: In the scene where Ronnie visits Brundlefly for the second time we see Brundlefly walking on the ceiling and wall, however his shirt doesn't remain consistent with gravity. This is especially obvious when he pulls his shirt up to show Ronnie his new tumor and then places it back down. The shirt appears to be being pulled up to towards the sky from Ronnie's perspective. (01:07:30)
The Fly (1986)
1 revealing mistake - chronological order
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Joy Boushel
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.
Seth Brundle: I was not pure. The teleporter insists on inner pure. I was not pure.
Ronnie: I don't know what you mean.
Seth Brundle: A fly... got into the... transmitter pod with me that first time, when I was alone. The computer... got confused - there weren't supposed to be two separate genetic patterns - and it decided to... uhh... splice us together. It mated us, me and the fly. We hadn't even been properly introduced.
Trivia: The film's director, David Cronenberg, has a cameo in this film as the doctor who helps Ronnie deliver her maggot baby.
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.
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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.