Themes revolving around the history of human exploration, consequences of war, immigration, and many other social/political issues are revealed through beautiful image clashing and surreal design.

Making the video involved complex planning, with detailed tables planning out each tenth of a second. It included three days of filming at Ukrainian studios and more days of filming in New York with members of the band at a studio and in the city streets, at a laundry automat and in a subway station. They stitched together different images to create incongruous new images, a technique known as compositing.

Thanks in large part to its stunning imagery, singer Chris Martin dubbed “Up&Up” the best music video Coldplay has ever made. The video spread rapidly on major popular social media, with over ninety-nine million views on YouTube. All of the strange, surreal and symbolic scenes aroused heated debate and questioning among the public—what is the band trying to say? How was such stunning imagery accomplished? What should the next call to action be?