Though many fans were skeptical about the future of One Direction after founding member Zayn Malik quit the group back in March of this year, they should take this as a huge sign the band's going to be just fine moving forward: One Direction dropped their "Drag Me Down" music video — aka, their first video without Malik — and it's literally out of this world.
In case it's not glaringly obvious from the usage of ironic italics there, the boys play astronauts in this music video. So...they're literally out of this world in the sense that they legitimately leave the Earth. Like, the entire duration of the video, they are training to go into space with NASA, and then at the end, they actually do it. I can't decide if the whole plot of the video is tongue-in-cheek following Malik's reported controversy with One Direction and others in the music industry, or if it's just a hilarious coincidence (I mean, the lyrics are "nobody can drag me down" — perhaps they just felt that "nobody can drag me down if I decide to be an astronaut and go into space because dragging me down from that would be physically impossible" would be too clunky a song lyric?), but I have decided that I like it. A lot.
Of course, the band's success without Malik should come as no surprise. "Drag Me Down" itself is 1D's first single without Malik, and, as Bustle's own Emma Lord described it in July, it's an upbeat power anthem that's sure to be a fixture on playlists for ages to come. All joking aside, yes, it still sucks that Malik is no longer with the band because he was such an integral part of it, but One Direction is going to be fine without him.
Check out the music video below, and prepare to hit the replay button about a million times after your first watch.
Image: OneDirectionVEVO/YouTube
