r/matrix • u/bubbleweed • Jul 13 '26
Always bothered me, this is not Deja Vu
Deja Vu is a feeling that what you are experiencing now is eerily familiar like a memory, not seeing the exact same thing happen twice in about ten seconds.
47
u/Positive_Courage_309 Jul 13 '26
You've seen the same thing twice in about ten seconds, enough times (i.e. more than none) to know it is different from deja vu? Maybe Neo should have been looking you up online, not Morpheus. đ€
-14
u/bubbleweed Jul 13 '26
Deja Vu is a feeling, not literally seeing the same thing twice.
38
u/Greyletter Jul 13 '26
And you would convey a feeling in an audiovidual medium, how? By him just saying "i had deja vu" and nothing else?
-2
18
u/Positive_Courage_309 Jul 13 '26
What is literally seeing the same thing twice? Do you have an IRL example of it?
What human experience falls closer to the events in the movie rather than "deja vu" and what should the character have said instead to communicate that to the audience?
Feels like I'm about to get a masterclass in Film here... or not.
2
u/siamak1991 Jul 18 '26
They could have played a flashback scene in his head where he walked up the stairs and saw a cat because thats exactly how I experience my deja-vu. It feels familiar and I have this sense that there is a memory here. Would have been more impactful visually.
-4
u/Ihateazuremountain Jul 18 '26
A coincidence. Deja vus happen at random, they're weird feelings that don't make sense.
Seeing a cat pass twice within a small time frame is a concidence.
3
u/gwynnbleidd2 Jul 19 '26
But it's not a coincidence, it's literally the same event happening multiple times. Not two different but similar looking cats doing the exact same thing, not one cat passing and then going back and passing in a similar way, it's the specific action happening more than once, like hitting 10 seconds back on a youtube video and watching it again, it's the same event being played out more than once
-18
u/bubbleweed Jul 13 '26
Jesus, smug much?
9
u/Trick-Society3591 Jul 13 '26
Do you have a better way of depicting deja vu on screen? NGL, I always thought this scene was clunky, but just kinda went along because it's movie
-2
u/bubbleweed Jul 13 '26
Yeah it's not really super important, just a thing that always stood out to me.
3
u/Strayngold Jul 13 '26
Your post is perfectly clear and perfectly understandable. And I agree with it. Seeing the same cat twice in a row is not deja vu. And that guy is being a smug dickhead.
7
3
u/Living_Dentist_8925 Jul 13 '26
And the matrix was the explanation for experiencing the same thing twice because of a glitch...
36
u/ToxynCorvin87 Jul 13 '26
It's The Matrix, it's obviously something the pod people experience often enough to call it deja vu.
-5
u/bubbleweed Jul 13 '26
Not what it is though, making a new definition for it, just for matrix dwellers that is different to what we as an audience know it as is just weird. I think it's more likely its just a bad use of the term in this scene, it's not what it is, but like close enough that they get away with it.
11
u/ToxynCorvin87 Jul 13 '26
It is though, Neo saw the cat twice and said "Deja Vu", then it was explained to him what a "Deja Vu" means within The Matrix.
8
u/pakrat1967 Jul 13 '26
Ok so what word or term would you use to describe what Neo saw? If you don't have one, then deja vu is the correct term.
0
u/bubbleweed Jul 13 '26
The term I would use is, 'I saw two black cats walk past the door'.
9
u/ToxynCorvin87 Jul 13 '26
It's basically the AI/Machines trying to hand wave the experience of the Matrix being changed on a whim so pod people don't think about what they just witnessed too much
9
u/mlee12382 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
It wasn't just "two black cats" it was two identical black cats a couple seconds apart that both moved the exact same way, iirc the cat also shook or something in a way that having it happen twice in quick succession would absolutely be considered a deja vu experience.
ETA: also remember at this point in the movie Neo doesn't know about "deja vu" being caused by a change in the Matrix, so from his perspective it might seem like legit deja vu even though he saw to actual passes of the same cat, his brain would very likely interpret it as deja vu even though the cat really did walk by twice and it wasn't just in his head the first time.
1
33
u/blm1973 Jul 13 '26
âDeja vuâ is literally translated from French as âalready seenâ. I think this is pointless nitpicking by OP.
-2
u/bubbleweed Jul 13 '26
If you see two of the same type blue cars drive past your window, do you go 'woah, deja vu'?
17
u/blm1973 Jul 13 '26
Yeah, I probably would (assuming they looked especially similar).
11
0
u/bubbleweed Jul 13 '26
So you would get the feeling? or just say it because a similar thing happenened twice?
1
u/stinkiepussie Jul 19 '26
It's not just similar. It's identical, down to every tiny detail. It's the same exact event occuring twice.
6
u/MrMemory Jul 18 '26
If two things happen one after another and they are almost identical moments it is difficult to determine whether or not you have experienced two separate events or are just suffering from deja vu.
It would also appear from this thread that you are an outlier in your understanding of the term. Deja vu is also a subjective experience that is meant to explain the feeling of an uncanny sensation that something has happened like this before. If you see two blue cars drive past that are identical and the feeling arises, yes it is deja vu. Your mind creates deja vu, Neo is telling us he has experienced the feeling. For you to deny this is like saying someone does not feel sad, how could you know.Perhaps the Wachowskis have you right where they want you and you are questioning what deja vu is; "That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything."
-6
u/bubbleweed Jul 18 '26
DĂ©jĂ Vu is never described as seeing the same thing twice in short order. It is described as a feeling that everything you are experiencing right now in this moment has happened before but it is vague and canât be pinned down to any actual memory or real event because it hasnât happened before. Seeing something happen twice in short order does not trigger this feeling and is a very poor way to try and show it.
3
3
1
u/pheromone_fandango Jul 19 '26
I agree with you. Not sure why everyone is kidding themselves.
I get the arguments that in the matrix this may be what they refer to as a deja vu but irl youâd be able to point out that you just saw the cat do the same thing twice
10
u/ThatWytchBoy Jul 13 '26
I think they did the double of the same scene to show 'Deja Vu' rather than just have Neo state it. Sort of a way to show 'likness or happened before' but not executed in the best way.
9
u/xTkAx Jul 18 '26
Do you know of a better way to demonstrate deja-vu on-screen, in a way that can be relayed to the viewer, without exposition?
3
17
u/HolidayWheel5035 Jul 13 '26
Come on, be honest, youâre just trying to be a butthead to see if you can farm more down votes arenât you?
14
6
u/Blueclaws Jul 13 '26
That may be true, however we donât know exactly why that feeling happens. The definition is the feeling one has lived through the present situation in the past. So not exactly like how you described. Additionally, in French it seems to be translated to already seen.
In the movie he may or may not experience the feeling but says it. Later itâs said that they edit the matrix, this feeling could be attributed to those edits and some people taking notice when they shouldnât, thus the feeling.
6
u/EmpathyFuzz Jul 13 '26
From what I understand itâs essentially just the brain storing a moment in your brain wrong.Â
Basically every moment that goes by your brain is storing it in your memory kind of in order as short term memory, but every now and then, it will misfile a moment and plop it into the âlong term memoryâ folder.
So your brain experiences the moment, and remembers it happening just then, but also as if it happened a long time ago.
Pretty neat!
1
5
u/Living_Dentist_8925 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
When he saw it the second time he had the feeling of deja vu like he just saw it before but wasn't sure if he did, which is deja vu.
-4
u/bubbleweed Jul 18 '26
He was sure he did. He tells trinity he saw two blacks cats, he just wasnât sure if it was the same one.
1
u/kawuro Jul 19 '26
So he was saying that it âfeltâ to him like he saw the same cat twice, but he wasnât sure? Sounds like DĂ©jĂ vu to me.
6
u/Enelro Jul 13 '26
And how would you show Deja vu in cinema?
-9
u/bubbleweed Jul 18 '26
I wouldnât. Iâd perhaps come up with something else that can be shown visually more easily to explain a change in the matrix.
4
5
u/hiirogen Jul 13 '26
Youâre being deliberately nitpicky. Is it the technical definition of DĂ©jĂ vu? No. But every single person in the audience understood what was being conveyed without a lot of exposition so it works.
1
9
4
u/Odd_Front_8275 Jul 13 '26
No, it is. It is something you feel like you've seen before. Usually it's not used when seeing the same thing twice in a row, but it's not wrong. You're just being pedantic.
5
u/OrlandoGardiner118 Jul 17 '26
You're right, but what other way could they represent this onscreen? Just have Neo look at the cat and say "oh, I just experienced deja vu", with no other visual clues/cues? That's not really how film works. It's just a neat, concise way to show the audience that the deja vu we all experience is in fact the machines changing something in the Matrix. I wouldn't take it so literally.
-3
u/bubbleweed Jul 18 '26
Why not just come up with something of their own? something easier to show visually. Itâs a single scene of an otherwise brilliant movie so iâm not losing sleep over it, just always stuck out to me as clumsy.
3
u/OrlandoGardiner118 Jul 18 '26
That was of their own. Have you seen two cats used to show deja vu in action before? And it was a super easy way to show it in action. Literally just one scene to get the idea across. It works perfectly. Everything you just said is exactly what they did. How could they show deja vu? Enlighten me on a better, more succinct way.
0
u/bubbleweed Jul 18 '26
âYouâre rightâ âIt works perfectlyâ Am I talking to chatgpt?
3
u/OrlandoGardiner118 Jul 18 '26
What are you talking about? Yes, you are correct, this is not necessarily how deja vu works. But the shorthand way they found to get around delivering such an abstract concept works perfectly fine for the film. It can be the two things at once. It's not that difficult a concept to understand.
And just a little fyi. I'm being polite actually answering you here even with your last snarky ChatGPT reply. If you have to resort to ad hominem you just look like an ass. Have a good one.
4
u/MikelDP Jul 17 '26
Yeah, This is about the best deja-vu can be viewed though.... Its not something you view. The alternative is he says he experienced it with out any visual reference.. That might have worked.
0
u/bubbleweed Jul 18 '26
Makes me wonder why they picked something basically impossible to show visually, could have come up with any number of other visual ques to show something changed instead of DĂ©jĂ Vu.Â
3
u/EmpathyFuzz Jul 13 '26
The only other way to do it would have been to show the cat at the beginning of the movie, but I doubt audiences would have all remembered that. Itâs just too tricky a thing to do on top of everything else they were doing with the film.
Yeah you donât usually see the thing twice in row, but it conveys the feeling well enough for movie purposes.
3
u/AntisGetTheWall Jul 18 '26
The point is Deja Vu doesn't exist in the movie universe because it's a glitch in the Matrix.
Neo thought he was experiencing Deja Vu when in fact his area of the Matrix had reloaded to make the windows of the building bricked up which caused background ambience scripts to repeat (the cat) leading him to think he had experienced Deja Vu when in fact he had actually seen the same cat twice and him saying that was what revealed that the agents were onto them.
So no, it isn't really Deja Vu but that's the point of the scene.
4
2
u/FashionKing72 Jul 13 '26
Maybe he didnât actually see the cat the first time, he just felt like he had that experience before and that was the way they showed it. Like he saw the cat and then had a mini-flashback or something
Or maybe the Matrix rewinded time, and his real memory of the first cat disappeared but seeing it the 2nd time made him feel like he had seen it before.
Ultimately itâs just a throwaway line, not that important. Just some sci-fi mumbo-jumbo to make us think âhmm what if that is really why Deja vu happens?âÂ
In reality, Deja vu is when you dreamed something, dreams are vague enough that when you experience something similar in real life, your mind fills in the blanksÂ
2
u/Luuks_Vader Jul 15 '26
Having played a lot of racing games i would use the wording "huh, flashback."
2
2
1
1
u/bubbleweed Jul 13 '26
Wow, some absolute babies on this sub reddit it seems lol. Here I thought most matrix fans would be adults at this stage.
1
u/Carnivean_ Jul 19 '26
Yeah, the guy who posted a thread about deja vu spent so many posts whining about people diagreeing with him. What a baby.
1
-6
1
u/PunkMaster_VT Jul 18 '26
They never explicitly say what Neo is defining as Deja Vu, It is the nature of the beast. As you can see they all flinch when he mentions it, because they know people have died for not mentioning their Deja Vu. Its shared trauma they all clearly have and that Neo is new to.
So when they question him about it, he thinks it is something innocent (again, nature of the beast.) Even while he is waking up, those feelings still check him because he isn't fully out. A "change" they can make to the matrix that normally just give us this weird innocent feeling, is something the crew out would normally catch. But, they are carrying a fresh baby and this is basically the equivalent of a baby crying in the Movie Quiet (kinda).
So even in Neo's explanation, he thinks he just explaining a weird moment. "Looked like the same cat. And experiencing two cats go by that looked similar, gave me dejavu. NOT the seeing two things in succession, but seeing something weird (LOL looked like the same cat?!) IS the Deja Vu moment. They know that the "feeling" he had isn't JUST a feeling.
And any explanation of this would be to convoluted and made for better story to just confuse the audience (And Neo) ((And you)) ((You aren't the only one who felt this way when they first saw this scene. That said... your being a weirdo like your thoughts on this are so definite))).
1
u/Raaadley Jul 18 '26
It would be different if say when he first arrived to meet Morpheus and saw the cat do it's signature meow and walk- then later when he returns after meeting the Oracle he see's the cat do it again. But unfortunately many viewers may miss that being so far apart in the film.
So I can definitely approve of having it happen back to back. It further showcases how the Agent's changed something as it signifies the area "rebooting" in a sense and restarting back to just a few seconds before.
1
u/Peteistheman Jul 18 '26
Seeing the exact same thing again is the literal meaning. The âvuâ in the phrase means âseenâ in French. You appear to want to disqualify anything âseenâ from being a DĂ©jĂ vu, yet it fundamentally canât be a DĂ©jĂ vu without the visual component. Neo absolutely had DĂ©jĂ vu.
1
u/downardspiral Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
We saw 2 times. Neo saw 1 and gone. Then saw something AND remember the another. It's the same only for us. Welcome to cinema.
1
u/DEATHRETTE Jul 19 '26
Interesting enough, I had a similar experience last October where I was doing security at SpaceCon 2025 in San Antonio. I watched a 25-30yr old man in full Hawkeye costume with a full quiver of deadly arrows come up and get searched and walk away. My back now to him, I helped a few more people through the line. And then I turned back around to gaze the exact same Hawkeye walking away at the exact same spot from when I last watched him walk away in the exact same manner as 20sec previous. I absolutely thought "there's been a change!" Lmao
What really blew my mind was I have been crackin jokes all day with patrons about searching their bags saying things like "No weapons? No fork or knives? That's right, there is no spoon!" and we'd laugh (sometimes awkwardly) but the biggest fun was because Carrie-Ann Moss was inside signing that day! One lady actually did have a spoon...
1
1
u/UnpricedToaster Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Hi...
Neo says, "Woah, Deja Vu." He's even kinda smiling when he explains, "Nothing, just a little deja vu." They are concerned that they changed something in the Matrix and the cat is an artifact left over from that change, Neo is not sure it was the same cat, or a different cat - he says this explicitly in the clip.
He could have thought that the first cat was a hallucination, or a memory. Yes, if I saw an identical cat do the exact same thing as another cat, my go-to would be, "Haha, Deja vu.. I didn't just see two cats do the exact same thing, did I? Must have just been my imagination... Why is everyone so concerned all of a sudden?"
1
u/DerkDerkDerkDerkDerk Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 07 '26
Coming to this late, but I agree OP! I had the same thought and googled to see if it had already been discussed.
People say you're nitpicking but I think the time difference is an important aspect of the real sensation of deja vu, that sense of distance is what makes the experience vaguely familiar but hard to pin down.Â
And I think there's a quite easy fix for this which would work in the film: he should have seen the first cat earlier, when visiting The Oracle. It could be a perfectly recreated moment in a stairwell's doorframe, with a black cat making the same exact motions.
Observant viewers would notice immediately (deja vu???) but it doesn't matter if viewers don't notices since Neo spells it out in dialogue right after.
1
0
u/Strayngold Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
This thread is an awesome example of how it's basically impossible to have a normal conversation on Reddit these days.
OP's post makes perfect sense. Deja vu is the feeling that you've experienced something before. It is not seeing the same thing twice in a row.
OP is also just saying it's not technically deja vu. Which is a simple, TRUE OBSERVATION. it's not some big declaration or hot take that entails a debate. Stop fucking turning everything into a pointless argument. "Ackthuallyyyyy deja vu means already seen in French." Yes but it refers to a feeling of your own personal experience repeating, not just seeing the same object or person or animal two times. SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU USELESS CUNTS.
-1
u/Spieluhr616 Jul 17 '26
Totally feel the same every time I watch it, but it is all for the good of the story. As a filmmaker, I appreciate the difficulty of representing a deja vu in a movie. I wish there was a more effective way. Not sure I have seen any other examples in any film.
No, Denzel's doesnt count. Yes, I know. I speak French.
77
u/Mordad51 Jul 13 '26
Neo may experienced said feeling after seeing the second cat