Playing GOD

by: Maria Angelica Pinon (2009-27411)

The film The Fly was a very interesting movie. It was partly amusing and intriguing. It really caught my attention by the point in the movie where the wife admitted the crime but can only answer with "I cannot answer your question". The movie was several decades old so the style at first I thought it was boring. Yeah I liked the wife's dresses but it did not seem so interesting at first, the dialogue seems draggy and the way of talking and acting seems off to me since it was from a different time. Then I became curious as the flashback starts.

The title of this post is from one of the lines of the wife. Something along the lines of: the speed of progress in technology her husband is doing is kind of scary, that it just isn't natural and it is being arrogant and an attempt to play as god. At the point I kind of had an idea why the husband would be killed. It feels as if the husband cannot be satisfied with what he had achieved. Well to be fair if it was me I would love to perfect it as well, but he probably should have perfected the tests on animals first (but that was not acceptable according to the wife and probably the society). It did feel like it is a morality play due to the wife's words. Even at the end when she starts considering the disfigured husband as more of a thing than a human being so it cannot be considered as murder.

I guess that's how the society feels about scientist at that time. They probably felt that they were being arrogant and they are to blame for the harm that they may cause themselves. They did not show any good resulting from technology, even the hydraulic press was used as a murder weapon as they seem to really inspire fear for technology and advancing. But the film did end with the words that the job of Andre' as scientist is to search for the truth which is beneficial to humankind.



Random thoughts during the movie:
When I watch Sci-fi films I had too many questions that would probably make the plot unusable. First how is it the the disintegrator-integrator (teleportation device) capable of not mixing the ice, the wine, the glass the container etc. but would mix two living organisms. How come the husband can still think and act as human when he has the head of the fly and probably it's brain as well, or did the brain mutate? The fly has the head of the husband and probably the brain to be able to know that it should shout "help me" to ask for assistance to be saved from the spider, or did it just mimic blindly? ? ? Why was the wife adamant on catching the fly with her own hands, if she had let her son (who is more capable and used to catching flies than her) problem would be solved. Why did he used himself as a part of the experiment when it was not tried as much with other species. He is the brain behind the project he should have tried it at least with other humans so if something goes wrong (and it did go wrong) he would be the one who can try and fix it. Why give up after two mere days? If the wife had presented the machine, just use objects to teleport, they probably would gain much for the patent, then they can probably use it to fund ways to catch the white fly or find a way to himself without the fly probably...