The Fly

The Fly is basically a movie about an experiment gone wrong. A scientist invents a teleportation machine and tries and tests it many times with different objects. When proven that the invention works properly, he tries it on himself, but it goes terribly wrong. Apparently while inside the teleportation machine, a fly was with him, so at the other end of the machine both of them were mutated. Their heads & arms had been interchanged, thus the scientist having the head and arm of a fly and the fly having the head and arm of the scientist

Watching it now, the movie’s plot was very common, but probably back in the 50s, it was a whole new concept. Nonetheless, the story was still dragging. It took a while for the story to build up. The ending wasn’t very surprising either. Both the scientist and the fly were killed. That’s it. End of story. The climax of the story (where we see the mutated scientist) wasn’t very surprising to me at all.

The movie just says that in science, there’s always room for mistakes. Even if the scientist tried and tested the invention again and again, the possibility of being mutated wasn’t foreseen. Then again, if there’s room for mistakes, there’s also room for improvement. Even if an experiment fails, you can always try again until you get the right formula. That’s the beauty in science. It doesn’t end at a failure. I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a morality play since killing both the scientist and the fly was the best possible option at that moment in time. They didn’t have the luxury of time to catch the fly and fix the experiment because (1) the scientist was losing his will and (2) the possibility of procreation could’ve changed the world.

It was an age open for exploration. The concept of a teleportation machine was new and bringing it into the world amazed the people. Science and technology were highly valued in this period and people were open for innovation. 

Rix, Mayumi Katrina B.

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