DAVID CRONENBERG'S
PART THREE of my INGMAR BERGMAN Seventh seal Death of The New Hollywood by way of Populism cycle
I'm a superfan of "The Fly". But as I got older I realized that even though it is a masterpiece, it's a flawed one. Cronenberg never intended it to end as a cliffhanger. Though he would walk that back later when wanted to direct a sequel to it many years later. Then there are some great deleted scenes that have already made it into fanedits out there. Moments cut for the wrong reason. I think Cronenberg made his greatest film just around the time he started to take himself a bit too seriously. And there is a bit of missed opportuntity with all that.
For my fan edit, I decided to go all in. Used scenes from "The Fly 2" to rebuild a subplot from the original script, and to give this movie more of intersection with reality like the movies around the same time. We got that great bar scene, but we all wanted to see 'the fly' create mayhem in the real world. So, we now get a second party scene at Bartoks... where the fly crashes the festivities and kills a bunch of folk. Helped me fix a couple of plot holes that always bothered me about the movie. And gives the movie a nice James Cameron feel, considering the film is a bit derivative anyways of Ridely Scott's Alien. So why not go for broke and make the movie a bit more of a bonefide monster movie? And decided for fun to make the movie a bit self-referential. Because, how do we know this isn't all taking place inside the mind of some wacked out consciousness of somebody from his previous film "Videodrome"? ;) Or just take those moments here and there as some Easter egg metafun, in the same way that early Spielberg would occassionally give us dorky humor in the form of a looney tunes cartoon playing in the background of a scene.
+HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE++
Better opening, with a bit more fun about all things insects and flies. Like a fly now flying across Seth's face as he hits on Veronica.
Introduce Bartok and his security force from the second movie. They are no longer corporate fascists. Just a-holes running a business. But a nice way of giving us a more textured world with some more supporting characters.
More intense love scenes, to help us chronicle the theme of sex addiction that "The Fly" is clearly about on some level. Which each scene, we can see Seth's lovelife become a reflection of the psychological diseases he is also suffering. He ain't just turning into a human fly, but also a creep. Used some great lost footage in the form behind the scenes stuff to make this work, with Seth trolling the streets for easy sex. And used scenes from Cronenberg's other straight-genre film "Eastern Promises" for add fuh, hence the Cronenbergverse Edition.
Longer stages of Seth's transformation. Again, courtesy of this treasure trove of lost material from behind the scenes footage. This is a movie that you want to indulge in the bad behavior and make up f/x of the characters.
All the deleted scenes from "The fly", don't need to go into them here. But made the great Baboon-cat experiment scene also a bit more of a monster movie moment, which is the real reason I'm guessing Cronenberg cut the scene (not because audiences were too grossed out, really? Why would he suddenly care.lol) No f/x artist Chris Walas confessed that his f/x for that scene looked terrible simply because he was exhausted on that day. So I did my part to give it a little more something 'something' to make it less like an angry muppet.
The second Bartok party. To make sense of the odd visit with an abortion doctor late at night, which felt contrived. Now the doctor is just another corporate a-hole at just another Bartok party. So while Ronnie and Stathis are trying to get him to give them a quickie abortion, the fly shows up and wrecks havoc at the party. Taking out the same security team, and Bartok of course. But simply as innocent members of their late night 80s party.
Some improved f/x here and there, and better closing credits.
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