Déjà Vu and Eternal Sunshine
What we know so far: (See final Treasure recap in Zero: Fever Part.1 (Part 1) and the Diary Film recap in Zero: Fever Part. 1 (Part 2)) Ateez gathered as friends and spent time together in a warehouse where they sang, danced, and hung out. They became each others' support systems and encouraged eachother to go after their dreams and escape the pressure the adult world was placing on them. A series of events occurred and the warehouse was locked up (by who we now know was Yeosang's father) and everyone was separated. That is when Hongjoong broke in and met Halajoong in a dream. He was gifted a Cromer and told about the other dimension where Halateez is from. (In that other dimension, Stirctland, the central government has outlawed the arts and reduced people's emotions below a certain threshold in order to reduce crime. Halateez have become anarchists against the central government and have broken into their vault and stolen the Cromer. They used the Cromer to escape the central goverment, but Android Guardians were created to finally capture them. Halajoong used the Cromer to travel to our dimension to give it to Hongjoong.) The Cromer remained after he woke up and he used it to bring the boys back together again and then transported Ateez to Strictland. There they fought the Android Guardians and lost the Cromer while trying to save Wooyoung. They met the Grimes siblings who have told them about Strictland's central government and the resistance fighters, the Black Pirates. They split up to talk to Left Eye and discover where the Android Guardians' bunker was so they could retrieve the Cromer and to find the Grimes girl's stolen voice. While going after her voice, Jongho fell victim to the yellow smoke and started to hallucinate he was playing the same basketball game he was injured in, thinking he was experiencing déjà vu. Yeosang went after him and saw him running towards a cliff.
Today is our third "fan voting for the title track" pair. Déjà Vu and Eternal Sunshine. As an asside, this was the first comeback I was Atiny for so I obviously voted and was very concerned with the outcome of the vote. I even got my friends involved and allowed them to have days where they picked what I voted for. This was hard for me since one of my girls wanted the other song. But, alas, my choice won which means, we will be starting with Déjà Vu!! However, since they filmed these music videos before the voting was completed, I would say in similar fashion to the other two pairs, Illusion/Wave and Inception/Thanxx, these music videos probably take place around the same point in the storyline so they could be used in either order.
Before we get into the music videos though, we need to catch up on some new diary enteries. Here they are from Zero: Fever Part 3. As a reminder, I am going to summarize the entires instead of not directly quoting them.
Intro: The fourth industrial revolution brought the expansion of the human lifespan to 200 years and compulsory education of 40 years in order to learn the basic knowledge for living in this world. The central government desired to create their own utopia using an AI system that was able to remove unpredictable variables. This system was able to eradicate all variables except human emotions. It was then targeted human emotions by prohibiting the arts and creating a new energy trading platform that estimated individual energy. As this happened, sensitivity, emotions, and free will faded away in order to prioritize the components needed to maintain the world.
Jongho: (Oh thank goodness they started with Jongho! How did people make it all of those months knowing he was running towards a cliff!!! This is the only good thing about being late, I could binge content.) Jongho is still in his illusion, playing basketball. He falls and thinks he has sprained his ankle, then hears someone calling his name and feels someone grabbing onto his arm. He then sees a doctor about to tell him about his ankle. Jongho frees himself from the doctor's grasp and starts to yell to his colleagues to take him with them as they were leaving. Jongho hears his name again and finally sees Yeosang who grabs ahold of Jongho and puts a gas mask on him. As Jongho breaths in the air from the gas mask, he finds himself sitting on the edge of a cliff. Yeosang tells him the Grimes girl has found voice and tells Jongho they need to get out of there.
Yunho: Yunho is still being attacked by Left Eye with a bat but he keeps missing Yunho and hitting other things. Yunho feels empathy towards Left Eye and fearlessly stands in front of him as he starts to come out of his illusion. Yunho tells Left Eye that it is not his fault. Left Eye then collapses and starts to ask himself the "what if" questions related to his daughter's death. Yunho feels like he is looking at himself when Left Eye does this as he feels the same guilt about his brother.
Mingi: Now that both groups have accomplished their goals, they are not sailing towards the Android Guardians' bunker. While on the ship, Mingi goes out onto the deck and overhears Left Eye and the Grimes siblings talking about how they think Ateez will be able to save Halateez. Mingi hid and listened as they watched a video of Left Eye's daughter dancing and talking about how they were missing the times when they could sing and dance as much as they wanted. They discussed how things would return to normal when Halateez was saved. They talked about the sunset and started to hum a song and dance. Mingi watched them and thought about how he once heard someone say dancing defines at leas the smallest will to live. He contemplated this statement and realized he wasn't seeing that in his life because he was weighed down by his past misfortunes.
Wooyoung: In the late afternoon of the following day, they arrived to the island where the Android Guardians' bunker was. It used to be a tourist location but now that vacations have become meaningless, it was abandoned. Left Eye and the Grimes siblings stayed on the ship so they could escape quickly when needed while Ateez headed towards a gallery in the middle of the island which was where the bunker was built. Wooyoung found it funny that they chose a gallery since they banned art. Yellow steam was coming from within the gallery and at the end of an exhibition path, they found some drunk Android Guardians laying on the floor in front of a glass prison filled with Halateez.
Hongjoong: Hongjoong saw Halajoong in the prison and banged on the glass wall. It did not move but Halajoong heard the sound and saw him. He took off his mask revealing an identical face to Hongjoong while talking about how Ateez was finally there, that they called them there, and that while they were being held captive, Ateez needed to continue their work since their world needs a change. Hongjoong asked Halajoong why it needed to be them and why they shared the same face. Halajoong said he didn't have enough time to explain and they would soon be caught once the smoke fades. He asked Ateez to put their hands agains the glass like he was. As they did he said, "We all face walls. Sometimes, we think that our lives would be happier without walls but that is not true. If we earn things easily, we could lose them easily." Hongjoong felt energy swirling around them and Ateez was then wearing Halateez's clothes.
San: After they discovered they were in Halateez's clothes, Halajoong yelled for them to run away before the smoke fades. As they were running, San realized the Android Guardians were burning people's memories to create the new energy/yellow smoke. He picked up some of the memories and was angered by discovering they were burning the memories which were the source to live and hope. He then heard Seonghwa should that he couldn't see Yeosang.
Seonghwa: They ran towards the lobby and met Yeosang there who came from the opposite exhibition. He threw the Cromer towards them and they were about the celebrate the ability to go back home when a group of Android Guardians came up behind Yeosang, grabbed his neck, and threatened to break it if they didn't get the Cromer back. Hongjoong, who was holding the Cromer, tried to move closer to them but the Android Guardian told him the throw the Cromer to him. Yeosang shouted not to throw it because they would also be captured. Seonghwa and Hongjoong didn't know what do to so they offered a trade, the Cromer for Yeosang.
Yeosang: Yeosang was regretting his careless behavior while seeing the Cromer in Hongjoong's hands. He thought about what they knew about the Cromer and took a gamble, When Hongjoong threw the Cromer to the Android Guardian, Yeosang quickly snatched it, turned it, and them smashed it. The glass broke and sand splashed everywhere. Yeosang was recaptured while Hongjoong tried to grab his hand but then the lights flashed.
Outro: Ateez woke up back in the warehouse where they started their journey and San started to count the members. There were only seven. He kept counting and crying as everyone realized Yeosang was not with them. As the members were bemoaning what happened, they heard a knocking on the warehouse door. Hongjoong opened the door and Yeosang's drone fell through the doorway. They swept the dirt from the drone and put it on top of a drawer. Everyone all felt it. Yeosang was alive.
Y'all!! This story!! It's too much!! Yeosang is trapped in Strictland and now they don't have a working Cromer. What is going to happen? I can't think about it right now because I need to figure out how these diary entires connect to the music videos.
Making of and Reaction to Déjà Vu:
Notes about the final scene: Wooyoung says, “Yeosang, I guess you’re the main character.” Hongjoong says, “Yeosang’s scene will make the fans curious because since “Say My Name” Yeosang is locked up and most of all the hourglass is broken and someone reaches out his hand and I wonder who that is.”
In the making of video, you see a different angle of that shot and it is Hongjoong’s hand becuase one of his nails is painted and Hongjoong always has one nail painted for the Painted Man charity.
So they are trying to point us to the diary entires here. I think Hongjoong's hand may be the part where he tries to grab Yeosang's hand as they travel back to our dimension. This is so sad!!
Bookish Theories' Déjà Vu Theory:
My Takeaways
Wooyoung and the flowers, Yeosang and the butterfly, and Seonghwa in the trance are all representations of the effects of yellow smoke
The scene with Hongjoong and Halajoong is the first time they actually meet face to face = true meaning of Déjà Vu scene with Hongjoong and Halajoong is the first time they actually meet face to face = true meaning of déjà vu as they met once before in Hongjoong's dream
Ok, so onto Eternal Sunshine. A quick note before we begin. I am interested in what the snow is telling us. We first see it in Answer with the Andriod Guardian and then in Fireworks. It will be in this video as well. I thought it was weird when I first watched it, which is why I am bringing it up before we watch the music video. Maybe, since so far both times we see snow, we also see the Android Guardians, it is a precurser to them. Maybe the snow is telling us they are on their way. I don't know.
Reaction to Eternal Sunshine:
During the reaction video they talk about how you can see the seasons changing a lot and Hongjoong said that was importatnt so I was right that the snow means something. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Also, I am thinking Eternal Sunshine is too happy for where they are in the storyline. Most of the time they have a happy concept in their storyline, it is an illusion. The city they see in the music video looks like the city from Fireworks and they spend quite a bit of time in the subway car which is in Fireworks as well. I think this is a yellow smoke illusion, especially knowing this video could have been released first so is part of the same events before the boys return home. I am thinking this is portraying Jongho's and Left Eye's illusions while Déjà Vu is portraying talking to Left Eye and breaking into the bunker.
Bookish Theories' Eternal Sunshine Theory:
My Takeaways
Deals with the themes of memory, friendship, and happiness
They boys are portrayed in a place of eternal fantasy where they would not be affected by the seasons (rain of autumn, snow of winter, petals of spring, sunshine of summer) and can live without aging like Peter Pan
It is based on the movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where the two main characters erase their memories in order to be free from the pain of their past
Eternal Sunshine is about cherishing the memories we have together in order to use them as motivation to live happily and move forward with a positive mindset
In the context of the storyline happy memories can be a source of danger
San's diary discovery is when people are intoxicated by the yellow smoke, the Android Guardians collect their happy memories and burn them to create the energy that sustains Strictland
The illusion of eternal sunshine is a lie and an effect of the yellow smoke
In the ending scene with Wooyong and San, it may be San saving Wooyoung from the illusion
Yeosang being left in Strictland may be a way to connect the Fever series to the treasure series through Say My Name
Now let's watch the music videos:
Final Thoughts
If you remember, we as fans were given the opportunity to choose which song Ateez promoted first and we chose Déjà Vu; but if you think about the music videos in the context of the Ateez storyline and not the order in which they were released, I think Eternal Sunshine actually comes before Déjà Vu. I believe Eternal Sunshine is a yellow smoke illusion, like the one Jongho was in as he was running towards the cliff, and a way to show us how the people of Strictland live while getting their happy memories stolen from them and burned for energy. We then move from this illusion to Déjà Vu where the boys go to the junkyard to meet with Left Eye and then break into the Android Guardians' bunker to finally meet Halajoong in person. It ends with Yeosang alone and breaking the Cromer to save the boys and send them back to their own dimension.
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