Jeff Goldblum credited as playing...
Seth Brundle
- Seth Brundle: You have to leave now, and never come back here. Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. Y'see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid, uh...
- Veronica Quaife: I don't know what you're trying to say.
- Seth Brundle: I'm saying... I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake.
- Veronica Quaife: No. no, Seth...
- Seth Brundle: I'm saying... I'll hurt you if you stay.
- Tawny: [after Seth says it's Tawny's turn to teleport] I'm afraid!
- Seth Brundle: Don't be afraid!
- Veronica Quaife: No. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
- Seth Brundle: It's unrelenting. Every day there are changes. Every time I look in the mirror, I'm someone different, repulsive.
- Veronica Quaife: What happened?
- Seth Brundle: I know an old lady who swallowed a fly Perhaps she'll die
- Seth Brundle: What's there to take? The disease has just revealed its purpose. We don't have to worry about contagion anymore... I know what the disease wants.
- Veronica Quaife: What does the disease want?
- Seth Brundle: It wants to... turn me into something else. That's not too terrible is it? Most people would give anything to be turned into something else.
- Veronica Quaife: Turned into what?
- Seth Brundle: Whaddaya think? A fly. Am I becoming a 185 pound fly? No, I'm becoming something that never existed before. I'm becoming: Brundlefly. Don't you think that's worth a Nobel Prize or two?
- Tawny: Are you a body builder, or something?
- Seth Brundle: Yeah, I build bodies. I take them apart, and put them back together again.
- Seth Brundle: I was not pure. The teleporter insists on inner pure. I was not pure.
- Veronica Quaife: I don't know what you mean.
- Seth Brundle: A fly... got into the... transmitter pod with me that first time, when I was alone. The computer... got confused - there weren't supposed to be two separate genetic patterns - and it decided to... uhh... splice us together. It mated us, me and the fly. We hadn't even been properly introduced.
- Seth Brundle: I've come here to say one magic word to you.
- Veronica Quaife: Yeah?
- Seth Brundle: Cheeseburger.
- Seth Brundle: My teeth have begun to fall out. The medicine cabinet is now the Brundle Museum of Natural History. You wanna see what else is in it?
- Seth Brundle: [to Veronica] You're afraid to dive into the plasma pool, aren't you? You're afraid to be destroyed and recreated, aren't you? I'll bet you think that you woke me up about the flesh, don't you? But you only know society's straight line about the flesh. You can't penetrate beyond society's sick, gray, fear of the flesh. Drink deep, or taste not, the plasma spring! Y'see what I'm saying? And I'm not just talking about sex and penetration. I'm talking about penetration beyond the veil of the flesh! A deep penetrating dive into the plasma pool!
- Veronica Quaife: Do you ever change your clothes?
- Seth Brundle: What?
- Veronica Quaife: Your clothes. You're always wearing the same clothes.
- Seth Brundle: No, these are clean. I change my clothes every day.
- Veronica Quaife: [Veronica looks into his closet and finds five sets of the same suits, ties, shoes and pants] Five sets of exactly the same clothes?
- Seth Brundle: Learned it from Einstein. This way I don't have to expend any thought on what I'm going to wear. I just grab the next set on the rack.
- Veronica Quaife: You're changing Seth. Everything about you is changing. You look bad. You smell bad.
- Seth Brundle: I've never been much of a bather.
- Veronica Quaife: Those... weird hairs that were growing out of your back. I took them to a lab. I had them analyzed.
- Seth Brundle: The hairs? The hairs? Oh. Yeah, that's a strange thing to do.
- Veronica Quaife: Not as strange as the results. The guy at the lab had trouble identifying them. He finally came to the conclusion, that they were definitely not human.
- Seth Brundle: Oh... Very good.
- Veronica Quaife: Not human, Seth. In fact, very likely insect hairs.
- Seth Brundle: [his last words before his final transformation] We'll be the ultimate family. A family of three joined together in one body. More human than I am alone.
- [first lines]
- Seth Brundle: What am I working on? Uhh... I'm working on something that will change the world, and human life as we know it.
- [Brundle sits at a table full of junk food, and explains his altered digestive system to Veronica and her videocamera]
- Seth Brundle: How does Brundlefly eat? Well, he found out the hard and painful way that he eats very much the way a fly eats. His teeth are now useless, because although he can chew up solid food, he can't digest them. Solid food hurts. So like a fly, Brundlefly breaks down solids with a corrosive enzyme, playfully called "vomit drop". He regurgitates on his food, it liquifies, and then he sucks it back up. Ready for a demonstration, kids? Here goes...
- [cut to Stathis, who is watching the videotape. The sound of Seth "vomiting" is heard]
- Stathis Borans: Oh my God.
- [Sound of Seth sucking back up the vomit]
- Stathis Borans: [shocked and disgusted] My God!
- Tawny: There's no elevator, I can't make it.
- Seth Brundle: No, there's an elevator.
- [picks her up in his arms]
- Seth Brundle: There, don't you feel elevated?
- Seth Brundle: I farm bits and pieces out to the guys who are much more brilliant than I am. I say, "build me a laser", this. "Design me a molecular analyzer", that. They do, and I just stick 'em together. But, none of them know what the project really is. So...
- Veronica Quaife: Wow! And, uh, the money? Bartok Science Industries Financed this?
- Seth Brundle: Hmm-mmm... But they leave me alone, 'cause I'm not expensive. And they know they'll end up owning it, whatever it is.
- Seth Brundle: [Seth and Veronica try an experiment late at night. Seth takes a steak and cuts it in half. He cooks one half, and the other half is teleported then cooked. He hands one plate of half the steak to Veronica and cuts her a piece] Okay. Eat this. I need an objective opinion.
- Seth Brundle: [Veronica chews it and looks at Seth confused as to what he is doing] Yes?
- Veronica Quaife: Well, it could use some finesse, but um, it tastes like a steak.
- Seth Brundle: Okay.
- [Cuts some steak]
- Seth Brundle: Now, I want you to try this - teleported half.
- Veronica Quaife: Oh, are you serious? A monkey just came apart in there.
- Seth Brundle: Baboon. Eat.
- Veronica Quaife: [Veronica takes a bite] Oh. Oh, it tastes funny.
- [Spits it in a napkin]
- Seth Brundle: Funny? How?
- Veronica Quaife: It tastes um - synthetic.
- Seth Brundle: [Seth smiles and takes the napkin] Mmm-hmm.
- Veronica Quaife: [smiles with intrigue] So, what have we proved?
- Seth Brundle: The computer is giving us its interpretation - of a steak. It's, uh translating it for us; it's rethinking it, rather than *reproducing* it, and something's getting lost in the translation.
- Veronica Quaife: Me. I'm lost.
- Seth Brundle: The flesh. It should make the computer, uh, crazy. Like those old ladies pinching babies. But it doesn't; not yet. I haven't taught the computer to be made crazy by the -
- [smiles at Veronica]
- Seth Brundle: flesh. The poetry of the steak. So, I'm gonna start teaching it now.
- Veronica Quaife: [after an unsuccessful test of the telepods] I've gotta do this, Seth. Talk to the tape. Get in the habit. The world will want to know what you're thinking.
- Seth Brundle: Fuck! is what I'm thinking.
- Veronica Quaife: Good. The world will want to know that. What else? Why didn't it work?
- Seth Brundle: [Disappointed] I think it turned the baboon inside-out.
- Veronica Quaife: Why?
- Seth Brundle: [sigh] It can't deal with the flesh. It only seems to work with inanimate objects; nothing that's living. It must be my fault.
- Veronica Quaife: Why?
- Seth Brundle: Computers are dumb. They only know what you tell them. I must not know enough about the flesh myself. I may have to learn.
- [Long pause]
- Seth Brundle: I don't wanna talk now.
- [Veronica turns off the camera and watches Seth sympathetically as he walks away with his head held low in disappointment]
- Seth Brundle: I think you're making a mistake. I think you really want to talk to me.
- Veronica Quaife: Sorry, I have three other interviews to do before this party's over.
- Seth Brundle: Yeah, but they're not working on something that'll change the world as we know it.
- Veronica Quaife: They say they are.
- Seth Brundle: Yeah, but they're lying. I'm not.