The Fly II
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| The Fly II | |
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 "Like father, Like son." |
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| Directed by | Chris Walas |
| Produced by | Steven-Charles Jaffe |
| Written by | Characters: George Langelaan Screenplay: Mick Garris Jim Wheat Ken Wheat Frank Darabont |
| Starring | Eric Stoltz Daphne Zuniga John Getz Lee Richardson |
| Music by | Christopher Young |
| Cinematography | Robin Vidgeon |
| Editing by | Sean Barton |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | February 10th, 1989 |
| Running time | 105 min. |
| Country | Canada/USA |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | The Fly (1986 film) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Fly II was a movie produced in 1989 starring Eric Stoltz and Daphne Zuniga. It was directed by Chris Walas as a sequel to the 1986 movie The Fly. Stoltz's character in The Fly II was the son of Seth Brundle, the scientist-turned-'Brundlefly', played by Jeff Goldblum in the 1986 remake. John Getz was the only actor from the first film to reprise his role.
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[edit] Plot
The story begins several months after the first film, with the birth of Martin Brundle. Martin is unique, as he is the offspring of Veronica Quaife and Seth Brundle/Brundlefly, the human-housefly hybrid from the first film. The birth is under the control of Brundle's employer, Anton Bartok, owner of Bartok Industries (which financed Brundle's teleportation experiments in the first film). Veronica dies during childbirth, leaving Martin in the custody of Bartok, who plans to exploit his unique condition.
Martin's lifespan is quickly accelerated as a result of his mutant genes. He knows that he is aging faster than a normal human, but he doesn't know of his insect heritage. As Martin grows, Bartok befriends him, amusing him with simple magic tricks, and tells him that the "magic word" to make the 'magic' happen is a secret word, and to never tell it to anyone as that's what makes the magic work. When Martin is three years old, he's already physically aged to a child of around ten. He frequently sneaks out of his room, and finds a room full of test animals awaiting testing. Martin befriends a labrador retriever. The next night, he sneaks out again to bring him some of his dinner, but he's gone. Martin finds the telepod lab, and they're about to teleport his dog as a test subject. The dog ends up horribly deformed, but still alive and attacks one of the scientists. Horrified, Martin screams and cries as Bartok consoles him.
Two years later, Martin is physically twenty years old, and is a fully mature adult. Bartok then offers Martin a position working on Seth Brundle's telepods. In the past five years, Bartok and his scientists have not made any progress in getting them to work. Bartok hopes Martin will be able to finish what his father started. He also apologizes for the dog, stating that he didn't suffer long.
As he begins work on the telepods, Martin befriends Bartok employee Beth Logan. They grow closer together over time as Martin tries to get the telepods to function correctly, and Beth invites him to a party over at the genetic research area. Once there, Martin discovers Bartok lied to him; they've kept his dog alive for two years. He runs out of the party and sneaks down to the holding pen where the dog is. The dog, however mutated and in pain, still remembers him and starts to wag its tail. Martin sits with it, and while petting his former pet, ends its misery by euthanizing it with chloroform. The next day, Bartok asks if Martin is aware of the break-in over at genetic research. Martin coldly says "no". and Bartok smiles (realizing Martin is lying) as he states that Martin is finally growing up. Bartok believes that Martin will become like him, a liar and corrupt man.
Eventually, Martin gets the telepods to function properly, but he also learns the truth of his father's fate, his own biology, Bartok's motives, and of a possible cure to his condition. Unfortunately, the cure, which involves swapping out Martin's insect genes for healthy human genes, requires the sacrifice of another healthy human being, who will in turn suffer a grotesque genetic fate as a result. Things begin to culminate when Martin's dormant insect genes awaken and the signs of his transformation begin. Martin escapes from Bartok Industries when he's told by Bartok of his "fate". Even though Martin successfully repaired the telepods, Bartok is unable to use them as Martin has installed a password with a computer virus attached (the computer asks for the "magic word") to erase the computer's memory if the wrong word is inputted. Bartok knows Martin had indeed been listening to him when Martin was a child and they'll never figure out the "magic word" without him.
Martin and Beth flee and go on the run. They go to visit Stathis Borans (who's become a recluse and a drunk since Veronica died in childbirth), who tells them he's not their hope, but confirms to Martin that the telepods are the only things that hold any chance of a "cure". They take Stathis Boran's truck and check into a motel, but Martin's physical and emotional changes become too much for Beth to handle and she surrenders them both to Bartok in desperation. Once they find him, Martin is already in the process of cocooning himself. Bartok asks Martin for the "magic word" to which Martin says "it's a secret word..." and doesn't reveal it. Bartok playfully scolds Martin for running away from him then says "...welcome back, son".
Once back at Bartok Industries, Martin has become completely encased in his cocoon. Beth Logan is subjected to horrible tests to make sure she has not been contaminated. Afterwards, Barton has her brought to him in the lab with the telepods and interrogates her about the "magic word." However, Bartok is not completely prepared for the full brunt of "Martinfly". Martinfly emerges from his cocoon and ruthlessly stalks and kills those trying to subdue him, as well as taking revenge on his betrayers. Despite the brutal methods he uses to eliminate the security team dispatched to recapture him, a trace of Martin's former humanity remains, demonstrated by his refusal to harm Beth and him simply stroking a dog that was sent to sniff him out. Having taken out the soldiers, Martinfly grabs Bartok, types in the magic word "dad," forces Bartok into a telepod, and gestures for Beth to activate the gene-swapping sequence. When the two are reintegrated in the receiving telepod, Martin is restored to his fully human form, his fly genes now removed from his body, and in the end, Bartok suffers the ironic fate of becoming a freakish monster himself.
[edit] Makeup/Creature Effects
As with the first film, special makeup and creature effects were provided by Chris Walas, Inc. As opposed to Seth Brundle's diseased deterioration into "Brundlefly", in The Fly II, Martin's metamorphosis is much more of a natural evolution (as a result of the fact that Martin was already born with human-insect hybrid genes instead of being accidentally fused with a fly the way his father was).
Here is a breakdown of Martin Brundle's transformation into the creature dubbed "Martinfly" by the CWI crew (behind-the-scenes information is in italics).
- STAGE 1 (on view in the scenes where Martin confronts Dr. Shepard and then attempts to telephone Beth Logan): Martin's face is slightly discolored, and he's looking haggard. Worse, a bizarre cavity in his left arm has appeared, and sticky, web-like threads are being excreted from it. Eric Stoltz's face was subtly discolored with makeup, and a gelatin makeup appliance was affixed to his left arm. The webbing coming out of Martin's arm was made from Halloween-style decorative spider-webbing.
- STAGE 1-A (on view when Martin views the various Bartok surveillance tapes, and when he subsequently escapes from the Bartok complex): Martin is looking even more haggard, and the skin beneath his eyes is puffy. This is an accentuated version of the Stage 1 makeup, with gelatin eyebags added under Stoltz's eyes.
- STAGE 2 (on view when Martin talks to Beth inside her houseboat, as well as in the deleted "Stopping for Food" scene which can be seen on the 2005 The Fly II: Collector's Edition DVD): Martin's bone structure has started to shift, and his face is rapidly becoming deformed. Gelatin appliances were added to Stoltz's face to give the impression that Martin's brow and cheekbones were becoming distorted.
- STAGE 3 (on view when Martin and Beth visit Stathis Borans, as well as when they arrive at the motel): Martin's entire head is deformed, his hairline is receding, and his voice is deepening. Also, the stringy white webbing is being excreted from his face now. Gelatin makeup appliances were added to Stoltz's entire head, and his voice was artificially lowered in post-production.
- STAGE 4 (on view inside the motel, and when Bartok arrives to retrieve Martin): Martin (his voice now even deeper) has begun to instinctively pull the webbing out of his own body and wrap it around himself. As it hardens, the webbing begins to form a cocoon. At this point, Martin's legs have been enveloped by said cocoon. Now that Martin is no longer wearing clothes, a hideous assortment of lumps and bumps can be seen on his discolored body, his face and head are even more distorted, and his teeth and ears are receding. Some of his fingers are webbed together with flaps of skin, and claws are growing on his knuckles. Martin removes his human right eye in this stage to reveal an orange insect eye behind it. The most complex makeup, this stage took some 12 hours to apply to Eric Stoltz, and he was required to remain immobile on the motel couch (with his legs inside the partial cocoon) all that time, as well as during the additional hours of filming that immediately followed. Body makeup and gelatin bumps were added to Stoltz's arms and torso, in addition to the makeup appliances covering his face and head.
Soon, Martin is fully enveloped by the cocoon (which begins as slightly transparent, with the next stage becoming opaque and iridescent). The scene featuring Bartok talking to the cocooned Martin involved a Martin rod puppet--transformed from the waist-down--being operated inside a transparent cocoon that was filled with water.
After a brief gestation period, the final "Martinfly" creature is revealed when it bursts out of the cocoon and goes on a rampage around the Bartok complex. The iridescent creature has four arms (each of which features two large, clawed digits), two reverse-jointed legs, and its body is covered with insect hairs. Martinfly is also tall and slender, with a segmented torso. Its head has piercing, orange insect eyes (with pupils), distorted nostrils, and two flexible mandibles with sharp teeth covering a mouth full of still more teeth. The interior of the creature's mouth contains a pseudo-proboscis, which can spray corrosive enzymes at high velocity. Whereas the Brundlefly creature in the first film was deformed and sickly, Martinfly is very strong, very fast, and very deadly. The final Martinfly creature was created as a series of cable-controlled and rod-operated puppets.
[edit] Response
The Fly II fared well in the box office compared with the first film, but is widely regarded as inferior by many critics. Many believe that Walas (who was the special effects engineer for the Oscar-winning make-up and creature effects in the first film) set out to exploit the success of the original by relying on excessive gore and violence at the expense of good storytelling. However, it is appreciated by many fans of the horror genre of films for its great visual impact, if nothing more. For his part, Walas has himself stated that the film was designed to be much more of a traditional (albeit gory) monster movie than Cronenberg's horror / tragic love film.
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- The film is somewhat of a remake of 1959's Return of the Fly, as it features some plot similarities, as well as a happy ending for the main characters.
- The first videotape of Seth Brundle is actually part of a deleted scene from the first film (with Geena Davis' dialogue redubbed by Saffron Henderson, who played Veronica Quaife at the beginning of the sequel).
- The film received a certain amount of backlash regarding the horrible 'mutant' dog, in particular, the scene where Martin mercifully euthanizes the dog, which is hideously deformed and kept in a large observation room. Many viewers were disturbed by the dog's appearance and sad fate.
- Geena Davis was asked to return to play Veronica Quaife, but she said she couldn't cope with another birth scene like the one in the previous film, so she declined.
- Daphne Zuniga was suggested by executive producer Mel Brooks to play the part of Beth Logan after working with her on Spaceballs (1987).
- The movie contains a subtle reference to David Cronenberg, writer-director of the previous movie. In an early scene where Martin sneaks out of his room to explore the Bartok Industries facility, a guard is seen asleep at his post, and resting on the desk in front of him is a copy of The Shape of Rage, a book which discusses the films of David Cronenberg (and the book's cover features a photo of Cronenberg himself).
- John Getz shaved his beard off after the first film, and so wore a false one.
- The script for The Fly II explained that Borans lived in such a fancy home because he'd taken hush money from Bartok (and had been told that Brundle's baby died in childbirth along with Veronica), but this was never mentioned on-screen.
- In an early treatment for The Fly II, it was revealed that the Telepods were not working because Stathis Borans had taken the computer's information storage discs (which contained the Telepods' programming) before Bartok took possession of the pods. However, this detail was dropped from the final film, and it is left unclear as to why the Telepods suddenly aren't working at the beginning of the sequel.
- The scene of a character's head being crushed by an elevator aroused some controversy with the MPAA. They originally gave the film an "X" rating due to its graphic nature. Ultimately Chris Walas was able to gain a more audience friendly "R" rating after reediting the sequence.
- Chris Walas mentioned on the DVD documentary that he was very displeased with the marketing of the film as he warned them not to use the "Like Father, Like Son" tagline as it sounded too "corny." The marketing executives still went ahead with the tagline. Producer Steven Charles-Jaffe says that he hates the marketing process as it could kill a movie with too much hype.
[edit] Deleted Scenes
While Martin and Beth are on their way to visit Stathis Borans, they stop to get some fast food. While Beth is inside getting refreshments, a car full of young baseball players pulls up next to him. Seeing the deformed Martin, they begin to taunt him. Martin proceeds to violently vomit digestive fluid towards the car, dissolving one of the windows. Beth quickly gets in the car and drives away. The coach in charge of the children, returning from the establishment to find his car window partly digested, shouts, "What the hell have you idiots done now?" before throwing down a tray of food and soda and hurling his hat at the children.
The other deleted scene available on DVD is an unused epilogue (which director Walas strongly lobbied against), which features Beth and Martin sitting by Beth's houseboat. Beth asks Martin how he feels. He stares back at her and replies, "Better. Much better."
[edit] External links
- The Fly II at the Internet Movie Database
- The Fly II at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Fly II at Box Office Mojo
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