Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Fly (1958): A Reaction Paper

Royce Tee 2013-71153

I've previously heard about the film before from some of my friends, so I had an idea of what was happening, but I never got around to watch it. At first, I was confused because I immediately expected to see the teleporter device and the fly, but instead I was watching a murder case. To be honest, for me it only got interesting after the wife was interacting with her half-fly husband, with elements of shock and suspense and disgust in it. Nevertheless, after watching the whole movie I can say that it was one of the more interesting concepts to be had in film.

The film showed the consequences of a man trying to create a teleportation device, and ending up exchanging atoms with a stray fly that got in when he was doing a teleportation run. I think that this film aims to point out the dangers in the pursuit of science, that there should be a line drawn where we should stop ourselves from going any further. Because of this, I do think it's a morality play, saying that even though the consequence wasn't intended or even anticipated, people should still think twice before venturing into scientific research.

The film ends with the uncle telling the child that his father doing something very dangerous but beneficial to humanity, which is "the search for the truth", to which the child responds that he wants to be like his father someday. I think based on this conversation, the view on science in the 1950's is that yes, while there should be precautions taken in science and technology, nevertheless we should not be afraid to progress.

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