The Fly On the Wall

The Fly on the Wall

Marga Rillo

“To boldly go where no man has gone before,” says the motto of the starship Enterprise. Though from a later decade, this famous line from the Star Trek series encapsulates the spirit of adventure and passion for knowledge shared by many science and technology enthusiasts throughout the 50s. This decade saw the development of many achievements in man’s quest for knowledge and an understanding of his universe, leading scientists to become more emboldened in their experiments as they mindlessly worked in pursuit of answers.

            The 1958 film, The Fly, presents to the viewer two aspects of this desire for knowledge through the hardships of a scientist named Andre Delambre. Blinded by the idea that his discovery of a teleportation device is a ground-breaking achievement that will benefit mankind, Delambre later on becomes careless, resulting in his head and hand transforming into those of a fly. In this way, the film is able to comment on how the well-meaning, passionate desire of scientists to learn more can easily change into mindless self-indulgence and the regard of oneself as godly. Consequently, it can be said that the movie is a form of a morality play, where the protagonist decides between disrupting the forces of nature and tampering with creation, or avoiding the unknown and living a safe, comfortable life.

            As a whole, watching the film was definitely an interesting experience, seeing as how it’s not the usual genre that I am attracted to. Though admittedly dragging at the beginning, the film keeps the viewer at the edge of her seat, and pokes at her to begin asking questions and to wonder what the search for knowledge truly means and truly entails. To boldly go where no man has gone before, indeed – and to risk everything just to understand and to get back.

Rillo, 2013-14388

The Fly: A Twisted Tale of Technology and Teleportation

The day I watched The Fly was the day I genuinely lost my appetite for the first time.

Even if the movie horrified me so much that I wished I fell asleep in class instead, it was actually pretty interesting. The story was so intriguing that I just had to know what would happen next. The effects were actually good for a film made in the 1950s. There were some parts that were really predictable, but everyone was still shocked by those scenes because of the special effects. This film, though quite disturbing, had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

With the concept of teleportation presented in the movie, I couldn’t help but think of what would happen if teleportation machines really existed. People might be using them responsibly at first, but things will go out of hand sooner or later. Issues on morality would no doubt arise. Is it acceptable to create something that gives people godlike powers? The movie shows that scientists just go and invent things without taking moral implications into consideration. This may or may not be true, but the question of morality all depends on a person’s set of beliefs.

As the film progressed, I kept wondering if science really was condemned back in the day. It was as if the movie was there to show everyone the horrors of getting into science. Based on the movie, people weren’t that excited about scientific breakthroughs because they were afraid something might go wrong. Yes, science can go out of control, but only when you misuse it. Only with the right knowledge and actions can science be used to create innovations that will help mankind.

The day I watched The Fly was the day I learned a little more about science and society.

Hannah Dungca
2013-14765

The Fly

It was my first time watching The Fly, and it actually exceeded my expectations. At first, it seemed like one of those old films that were kind of serious, boring, and dull, but as the film progressed, I found myself watching really closely and paying attention that even the slightest noise bothered me. What was nice about the film was that the main objective of the audience of discovering why the wife killed her husband was revealed slowly, and it made the movie a whole lot more exciting and mind-blowing. The movie would make you switch sides, from believing that the wife was crazy thus killing her husband for no reason, to feeling pity for the wife since her husband became a fly. I believe that the film was also a way of telling us that science cannot do everything. It has its imperfections, and men should know when to draw the line between experimenting for the sake of science and violating the moral code of ethics. I learned from the film that while it is nice to help people using science in order for them to have better lives (which is why the guy did his invention), there is still a limitation to it and we must take everything into consideration since this could possibly affect many people. Just imagine what would have happened if the invention of the husband was actually used by many people. This could cause serious complications since the machine could go wrong in so many ways, just like how it made the husband into a cross breed between a fly and a human.

All in all, the film could be seen as a warning that men should be cautious with science. It reminds us that there might be great consequences we might not be willing to experience if we go overboard with it. Learning from this film, we should all know when science is advantageous, and when it could wreak havoc already. The fly having the head of the husband should be more than enough to scare us away from experimenting on stuff that we should not be experimenting with.

Bea Lejano
2013-14235

The Fly

Curiosity killed the cat. That was what came to mind when I was watching “The Fly”. On contrary, I believe that curiosity is one of the greatest things human have. Having such a strong desire to know about things was the very reason why we know and have the things that we have right now. It is the very thing that prompted humans, especially scientists, to explore new discoveries in the world of science.

As seen in the movie, scientists conduct their research and later on, experiment to test their hypothesis. As for the Andre, he was creating a teleportation device. When he tested it, there was some sort of error. He tried solving the problem and fortunately, succeeded in fixing the machine. On the other hand, an idea came to his mind when he saw his pet cat. He experimented with the cat by placing it in the machine but to his shock, it disappeared out of thin air. His guilt faded as soon as he was able to successfully teleport a live subject after doing some rectifications. Yet, despite his wife’s request, his satisfaction wasn’t still on its brink for later on, he did what has been unthinkable yet, inevitable. He used the device but, due to an accident, his body got integrated with a fly, which later on became the very reason of his death.

It was evident that in the 1950s, science was a scientist’s key for fame and wealth yet, was portrayed as something dangerous—dangerous enough to cause a man his life. The movie showed how exploring science and technology can give way to a lot of undiscovered knowledge and possibilities while reminding us that there are things that should not be explored by man and should be left as it is.

Erika Joyce G. de Luna

2010 – 06190

The Fly

The Fly would probably be one of those movies which you won’t forget. Not because of it’s effects and the quality of the production, since it was made during the 1950’s, but because of the plot of the story. It showed the life of a scientist and how dedicated they are to research and finding new discoveries. The main character of the story, Andre, was so devoted to his new found technology that he not only spent most of his time in his lab, but defied the laws of nature as well.

He was so keen in perfecting the teleportation device that he built that he even sacrificed life itself just so he could reach his goal. He first tried to experiment with their cat but it failed and Andre didn’t know where the cat wandered off to since it didn’t reappear. Another scene showed that Andre was able to fix his miscalculations and was able to teleport a guinea pig. 

Andre’s wife made him promise not to experiment on animals anymore since it was taboo to experiment with life itself, and they see it as a dangerous thing to mess with. Andre fulfilled his promise to to experiment on animals anymore, though his wife didn’t specify not to experiment completely on living beings itself, since Andre tried to teleport himself. Unfortunately, Andre’s experiment failed when a fly was inside the machine when he tried to teleport himself, hence mixing their atoms/molecules and switching heads with the fly. 

This movie goes to show just how scary science can really be when dealing with phenomena which can be too much for a person to handle. The movie also showed just how science and technology can affect society, or people in general, whether it may be for the better or for the worse. It can ruin a man’s life when he strives to reach his goal just to be successful in new discoveries where no one else has, and that he will not stop at any point just to prove his discovery.

The Fly: The Epitome of Human Carelessness with Technology

Probably one of the most disturbing and physically mortifying movies that I have ever watched so far would be The Fly. Yet it doesn’t fail to impress an incredibly significant lesson on its viewers regarding the ethical implications of scientific and technological innovation.

The Fly is a science-fiction horror film but the only scary thing about it is perhaps the thought that my body might get swapped with an insect much less a fly when trying out an experiment. But despite the lack of intensity to strike fear in me, it effectively brought its message across even if it was in a morbid way.

The film caught my attention from the beginning since it immediately introduced the conflict of the story, that being the murder of Andre by his wife Helene, without any prelude to the present situation. However, it was able to make effective use of the flashback which gave the story more substance, clarity, and progression. So it was definitely entertaining and quite interesting due to the characters’ quirks and the sequence of events.

In the flashback, it was revealed that Andre built a teleportation device that could transport any matter from one portal to the other. Through the character of Andre, we see that scientists have the innate thirst for truth and knowledge and nothing will stop them from getting the answers. However, it came to a point when he exceeded the boundaries and experimented on himself which led to bigger complications. I do believe that it was a play on morality because we have to know and accept our limitations and consider the risks.

The film shows us that science and technology in the 1950s was a phenomenon or an impetus for improvement of life that could give someone fame, wealth, and power.

Panem on Fire

In the typology of fiction, science fiction goes under a broader umbrella of speculative fiction, and rightly so. It speculates – predicts, imagines, gambles with the possibilities of the future. Suzanne Collins’ sequel to The Hunger Games was followed by Catching Fire – again, like the first, was visualized into a film. Is it science fiction? Futuristic settings and technology, check; a dystopian society, check; a different world order, check. However, the quality that highlights its genre is the work’s capacity to convince viewers that the human condition is worth examining through the technology and society present. 

Reflecting this timelessness of the human condition – past, present, and future – is speculative fiction’s most essential quality. In this recent visit to Panem, Katniss Everdeen, the spark of the rebellion, suddenly is catching fire. Although we see her being repressed by the government, drawn to the Quarter Quell and fated to die in it; there was a rebellion that was growing silently behind her back, because of her, without her even realizing it. In the same way in Philippine History, Jose Rizal was the spark of the flame – his ideas, which the government repressed, reached the Filipinos at the time and set forth the independence movement, without his knowledge of it. We also see the Panem government that is tight on surveillance, with every inch of each district being placed under their watch. Surprisingly, this concern regarding surveillance and privacy is also very well into our present, with the post-9/11 paranoia boiling in the background, the US government mostly in its center. Lastly, although the best we can do is speculate about the future human society, it is not a far cry from the trend we are following now. Weak social control and revolutions are beginning to destabilize previously intact authoritarian (or even democratic) governments, with political activists, such as Gene Sharp, stirring the phenomenon.

From the perspective of the government, science and technology in their hands have failed. Considering that they do have a clear abundance and control of it, they were not able to monopolize it because the citizens still were able to access and take advantage of it. On the other side of the coin, though, it is almost a victory for the rebels – first, that Katniss and Wiress outsmarted the Quarter Quell, and second, because the supposedly obsolete District 13 was successfully kept hidden and preserved all these years for that very moment of revolution. All in all, though, society fails to uphold order, but in that light, it is also successful in creating much needed social upheaval.

Christine Joy L. Galunan

2013-50860