Seeing this movie was a long time coming,

and I finally had the good fortune to see it on the *big screen* at Film Forum. I was aware of Sun Ra and had seen images from the film before. And, based off of these images/references I had seen before, I thought Space is the Place was mainly known for being a fun, shiny, imaginative, and visual spectacle.
It was indeed a fun, shiny, imaginative, and visual spectacle, but it also contained volumes of social commentary. I had no idea the piercing critiques within the movie, and am awed by how much these same ideas continue to echo, reverberate, and *vibrate* today (see bottom).
See for yourself, the entire film is on YouTube right now: https://youtu.be/LyMAu1goIMU

"The music is different here, the vibrations are different, not like planet Earth. Planet Earth sounds of guns, anger, and frustration. There's no one to talk to on Planet Earth that understands. We'll set up a colony for Black people here, see what they can do on a planet all their own, without any white people there. They could drink in the beauty of this planet, it would affect their vibrations, for the better of course. Another place in the universe, up under different stars...or better still, teleport the whole planet here through music"

a Tarot card-based card game, a cosmic showdown between Sun Ra and the Overseer

the Overseer

June Tyson

♪ "if you find earth boring / just the same old, same thing / Come on sign up with / Outer Spaceways, Incorporated" ♪

the woefully ill-suited applicants

rescued by the youth

An echo

On what it means to participate in power structures that were built to exclude:

https://twitter.com/janusrose/status/1510460569152720902

space is the place (1974)

Seeing this movie was a long time coming,

An echo