Last weekend I watched The Current War, which is about the battle between Edison’s desire to maintain and grow his DC power plant system and Tesla’s desire to give the world AC power at about 1/3 the cost.
I first heard of this movie last year and have been eagerly awaiting its release.
The movie was well done as far as the quality of production is concerned, the acting was good but they didn’t quite develop the story well enough to build up the excitement enough with Tesla’s triumph of lighting the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
Nevertheless, it is a story that changed the world and is worth watching just for the history lesson. The story is also not ultra technical so even youngster’s can understand the gist of the story. It doesn’t get into Tesla’s more mysterious technologies, but Tesla’s character does mention briefly the transmission of electricity without wires and it was left at that.
Here’s the trailer:
Learn more about The Current War and where you can watch it: The Current War
One thing about the movie is that it doesn’t give a lot of context of where Tesla came from and more of his back story but there is a movie that is old enough that it’s free online that does a great job of giving you the larger story. It even has Orson Wells as JP Morgan – The Secret of Nikola Tesla. I’d recommend watching this old movie first and then The Current War second because you’ll have more of a frame of reference about everything referenced.
It’s got a bit of a dated, strange feel to it, but it’s definitely a must see. This version has subtitles, but at least its free. There is another version on YouTube that is a full version that doesn’t have subtitles but the audio and video aren’t perfectly in sync so this one seems to be the best edition.
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