my theory to tie together all the videos

edited to make more sense. this started as a call me back post but i ended up tying together all the videos in a way that makes sense to me.

in call me back, the lyrics metaphorically describe the video too much for this theory to be incorrect. i'll explain what i mean a bit later, but for now we'll get into the narrative.

so, the story follows this girl. she's obviously had some kind of relationship with someone - the guy she's hugging - the guy who appears in these flashbacks - and in the flashing cameras when she's walking down the street. this is the guy from the sci-fi mv.

in sci-fi, he's with this other girl. she seems more interested in him than he is in her. he leaves her alone at the start of the video, he hardly seems to pay attention to her throughout... at the start, they run away when they're about to get caught, but the people catching them/the motive for approaching is completely ambiguous, as if it were just a metaphorical tool (i.e., they were "getting caught" for something else).

what i understand from this is that sci-fi guy is cheating on call me back girl with sci-fi girl.

call me back girl catches him cheating at the club. that's why she appears disinterested in the club - she's just been hurt by finding this out.

that's also part of why there are a lot of shots of her just enjoying the earth by herself.

she's spending time away from him, after having possibly left him? but she's reconnecting and rebuilding her relationship with the world, her home. this is because she's an astronaut, and she knows she'll soon be going to space.

there's another astronaut. let's call him jon. jon secretly has feelings for call me back girl - that's why he briefly seems to appear in the back of the scene with all the camera flashes (2:57). however, i don't think that's actually where he is - i think he's in the club, with the similar red lighting, looking at call me back girl.

jon wants to be with call me back girl, but at this point she's still in a relationship with sci-fi guy. at the end of reaching 2, he looks longingly at her from a tent which, because of its colours and lighting, looks almost heavenly, and she walks away, unaware of his affection. we'll come back to jon here later.

call me back girl then goes to space.

the shot at 2:20 - the same one from the end of reaching 2 - shows the camera drifting out to space, after she walks away from jon at the end of reaching 2, leads into a shot of her looking down. she is, literally, looking down - from space.

but unfortunately, this is where the story gets deeply sad. and this is also where i give an example of how the lyrics connect to the video, like i said at the start of this post.

the lyrics at 4:28 - "how it felt like i was burning, while you weren't watching, took everything i loved, now nowhere feels like home". these lyrics play as her spacecraft begins to burn up as it leaves the atmosphere. this is why the video has such vibrant lights, a wide-eyed expression on her face, flashbacks of her past, and - ultimately - the flashing from the explosion recorded in the reaching 2 video, paired with the flashing of the lights in the club - her final memory as she dies in said explosion.

the next shot (5:17) shows her floating on the ocean, like at the beginning of the video, when she was at peace - only this time, she has a halo around her head. she's died, and this is her afterlife.

if you need any more proof, at the end of the reaching 2 video, as the instrumental loops, we see the rocket take off into space. and then, bearing the information from call me back in mind - the looping music almost sounds like an alarm.

back to call me back, though.

there's a shot of her endlessly driving. because now she is just in the endless state after death, and there's nothing to feel and nothing to experience - there's just nothing anymore, and yet it's seemingly endless. this part ties into the balling mv. it starts with a guy looking out at the sea, until his chair breaks. there's then a shot of loads of formerly broken chairs. those broken chairs didn't really exist, but were used to represent the man's death, and his endless loop of that moment, when he was at peace in nature. that theme of being at peace in nature is throughout the call me back mv.

the shots of her in the empty blue void highlight this sort of nihilistic view that it's possible for one to perceive nothing - it's meant to represent the eternity of consciousness i think, but that's not really something you can convey in that way because it's not something that would exist in that way. but the seeds of this eternal consciousness are planted throughout the video, so to speak. the girl connecting with nature, the planet - she's reconnecting with herself as well, and she understands that she herself is a part of nature, not truly above it even if she is in space. she was a part of that world, and that world was a part of her. and even with her gone, that world continues to go on and bring new life.

so i think it's ultimately an optimistic perspective, even if it is an incredibly sad story.

i also think the shaky car driving in some shots in the video is jon - building on the idea that he drives a lot, which i feel was pretty cemented in the modern warfare mv. and this is where we come back to jon at the end of reaching 2.

until reaching 2 (i.e., in the commercials and the music video cameos), we had only seen him with his blond hair. in the modern warfare video, that's what he had - so let's say there's a point in the timeline before which he's blond, and after which he has short dark hair. this is the point where he dies crashes his car.

in my original theory this was where he died, but i think that's too dark and doesn't make as much sense as the idea that he crashes but survives.

but yeah, he crashes his car. the shaky cam shots in the call me back video are meant to show him driving - perhaps drunk driving after seeing call me back girl at the club (2:57). and this is why the modern warfare video is this "home video" style recording of jon smashing up and eventually crashing/totalling a car. that video doesn't look the same as the others because it's a metaphor from jon's perspective, not call me back girl's. and his metaphor is that he crashes his car in the modern warfare video, and as such is implied to crash his car in the call me back video.

this is before either of them go into space, by the way. it's probably directly between 2:57 - him at the club - and the end of reaching 2, where call me back girl leaves to go to space.

this is why he's in this bright white location, wrapped in foil (something i believe is done to help with shock?) - it's not a real place, but it doesn't represent death like i originally thought. it represents jon in a state of shock after his car crash, remembering call me back girl and mentally relating her crash to his. when he sees her at the end of reaching 2, he isn't really seeing her, but remembering her.

there's also a brief clip of jon sitting with call me back girl and speaking at a press conference, and it's subtitled in chinese. the translation as per this comment reads along the lines of: "I promise, I'll let you know when it's time to leave". sounds like foreshadowing/hinting at what's about to happen.

i think that explains/ties together all the videos in a way that makes sense. to conclude, it's a story of the death of love, the death of people, the eternity of nature, and most importantly the eternity of life, which has come before us and will go on after us. i don't think it's something that's easy to describe as either happy or sad - it's definitely a deep concept, and i think really incredibly well done. the emotions jon has felt course through this series of videos beautifully.