"Dr. Fronkensteen?"
"It's Frankenstein!"
The quote above comes at a most crucial point in the movie Young Frankenstein. Dr. Frederick Frankenstein has just soothed the monster that he has created, and thus he deems it the perfect time to drop the farcical pronunciation of his famous last name.
Not wanting to be linked to a Frankenstein is understandable (see my post titled, "Branagh-stein"). For Frederick Frankenstein, it is near impossible to live-down the infamous reputation of his grandfather, whose reanimation of a corpse led to his own peril. But when given the opportunity to commence a project similar to his grandfather's, Frederick Frankenstein doesn't show the slightest bit of hesitation.
He, like many others before him, is attracted to the idea "playing god." This lure is common throughout science-fiction, and it almost always proves troublesome. In Frederick Frankenstein's case, he inadvertently places an abnormal brain inside the corpse he wants to reanimate.
The question commonly asked by scientists like Frederick Frankenstein is, "Can it be done?" Not so commonly asked is, "Should it be done?" He wants to reanimate a giant corpse, but for what purpose? Of course, Young Frankenstein is, in part, a satire, but it doesn't poke fun at the second question. The movie could have had much more significance if the writers had a satirical reason for the reanimation, one that highlighted the arrogance of the wild scientist and the recklessness of his ways.
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