| abstract | - The Telepods were the invention of molecular physicist Seth Brundle, and at one point he stated that they would probably prove to be his life's work. Brundle's initial motivation for creating a teleporter was to avoid traveling in vehicles, since he suffered from motion sickness. The project was funded by Bartok Science Industries, and took six years to complete. Brundle secretly subcontracted elements of the Telepod design and components to other scientists, none of whom were aware of the true nature of the project. He then assembled the components himself, and, despite his own scientific brilliance, he modestly referred to himself as nothing more than "a systems management man", since he was not entirely aware how certain components worked. Brundle constructed one prototype Telepod (presumably used to both disintegrate and reintegrate test objects), and then had two refined models ("Telepod 1"--sending pod, and "Telepod 2"--receiving pod) built after the first version proved successful. All three Telepods were housed inside Brundle's makeshift laboratory/living quarters, which was located on the top floor of an old warehouse. In 1986, Brundle was attending a meet-the-press party sponsored by Bartok when he met science journalist Veronica Quaife of Particle Magazine. Convincing Veronica to come to his lab, Brundle showed her the Telepods, and teleported one of her stockings as a demonstration. Brundle asked Veronica to keep quiet about the project until the proper time, and offered her the chance to chronicle his work, with the goal being a book that would end with Brundle using himself as the system's first human subject. Despite Brundle's apparent success at creating a functional teleportation system, there was still a major problem that had yet to be overcome: the Telepods could only successfully recreate non-living matter. This was gruesomely displayed when Brundle used a baboon as a test subject, and the animal was reintegrated in the receiving pod inside-out. Depressed by this failure, Brundle realized that the reason organic matter could not be successfully teleported was because the Telepods' main computer did not understand the nature of living flesh, and was rethinking living tissue instead of reproducing it. After beginning a sexual relationship with Veronica, Brundle determined that the computer needed to be programmed for creativity when reintegrating living beings. Brundle's epiphany was proven correct when a second baboon was teleported successfully. However, that same night, he came to the mistaken conclusion that Veronica was still seeing her editor and former lover, Stathis Borans. The drunken and jealous Brundle thus decided to teleport himself without Veronica being present as an act of revenge. Just before Telepod 1's door automatically closed, however, a common housefly slipped into the pod, unseen by the distracted scientist. The computer, confused by the presence of two distinctly separate life-forms in the sending pod, decided to fuse Brundle and the fly together at the molecular-genetic level. The resulting being that stepped out Telepod 2 had the body of Seth Brundle, but contained the new Brundle/fly hybrid DNA within his cells. Many viewers have questioned why Brundle was merged with the fly, but not with the various bacteria and other such life-forms inside the Telepod--and his own body. One can assume the Telepods were programmed to compensate for such micro-organisms (a notion that is reinforced by Brundle's initial assumption that he absorbed the fly rather than merged with it), but not for a separate life-form of such relatively significant mass as the fly. At first energized by this unexpected genetic fusion, a manic Brundle mistakenly theorized that the teleportation process itself had somehow purfied and improved his physiology. Seeing teleportation as "a perfectly pure and benign drug", he teleported himself a second time. Soon after, however, Brundle came to realize that something had gone wrong during his first teleportation, and an examination of his computer's records revealed to him the horrific truth about his fusion with the fly. Over the next few weeks, Brundle slowly and painfully mutated into a deformed, asymmetrical creature that he eventually named "Brundlefly". Desperate to find some kind of cure for his rapidly deteriorating condition, the diseased scientist turned to the Telepods for salvation. He reconditioned the old prototype Telepod (now dubbed "Telepod 3"), and, considering how to minimize the severity of his gradual mutation, he installed a "fusion" program into the computer as way of finding a solution. Eventually, the computer suggested to him that the best way to make himself more human would be to genetically merge with one or more pure human beings. In a scene deleted from The Fly, the desperate Brundle used the three Telepods to fuse the surviving baboon and an alley cat together into one entity. However, the resulting "monkey-cat" creature was horribly deformed and in terrible agony, and so Brundle put it out of its misery by beating it to death with a metal pipe. This experiement was clearly a failure, since Brundle's fusion program was designed to merge living beings together at the genetic level--just as Brundle and the fly were--, but the baboon and cat were instead physically merged together into one entity. As a result, Brundle resolved to refine the fusion program. Soon after, Brundle kidnapped Veronica and took her back to his warehouse after learning that she was pregnant with their possibly child and was seeking an abortion, believing the unborn child could be the last, potentially untainted remnaint of his humanity. Stathis came to her rescue, armed with a shotgun, but Brundle mutilated him with his now-acidic vomit-drop, only sparing his life on Veronica's pleas not to kill him. Brundle then revealed his last-ditch plan to Veronica: he intended to use the Telepods (with Telepods 1 and 2 serving as sending pods, and the prototype as the receiver) to fuse himself with Veronica and their unborn child. He believed that this would make them the "ultimate family", an entity "more human than I am alone." As Brundle activated a countdown to the fusion sequence, Veronica resisted, and pulls off Brundle's jaw in the ensuing struggle, tiggering his final transformation, Brundle's diseased and rotting outer skin was shed as he made his final transformation into "Brundlefly", the monsterous fusion of man and insect that had been growing beneath. The Brundlefly creature then threw Veronica into Telepod 1 and stepped inside Telepod 2. However, the wounded Borans managed to stay conscious, and used his shotgun to sever the cables connecting to Telepod 1 to the computer, which allowed Veronica to escape unharmed. Seeing this, Brundlefly attempted to break out of Telepod 2 just as the fusion sequence occurred, and as a result was molecularly intertwined with chunks of metal and other components from the Telepod itself. As the mortally wounded Brundlefly-Telepod 2 fusion creature crawled out of the prototype Telepod, it begged Veronica to end its suffering with Borans' shotgun by placing the barrel against its own head. A devastated Veronica hesitated, then mercifully pulled the trigger.
|
