The Matrix: 20 Things You Didn't Know

8. Morpheus Never Says His Most Iconic Line

Will smith matrix thumb
Warner Bros.

The Mandela Effect is a psychological phenomenon which causes a person to misremember something. When this happens to a large group of people, it is known as a Mass Memory Discrepancy Effect.

The best example of this is when people fail to recollect supposed quotes from movies. In Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, The Evil Witch never says, "Mirror, mirror on the wall". Obi-Wan Kenobi never utters the words, "May The Force be with you," in Star Wars. The Wicked Witch doesn't say, "Fly, my pretties, fly!" in The Wizard of Oz.

The Matrix falls victim to this phenomenon too. Morpheus has become iconic for beginning a sentence with the phrase, "What if I told you..." However, Neo's mentor never says this at any point in the trilogy. This seems like a hard pill to swallow (no pun intended) since this phrase has been relentlessly parodied and turned into a meme. But if you rewatch the film, you can see he never utters these words.

Contributor

James Egan has been with Whatculture for five years and prominently works on Horror, Film, and Video Games. He's written over 80 books including 1000 Facts about Horror Movies Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about The Greatest Films Ever Made Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about Video Games Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts About James Bond 1000 Facts About TV Shows