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Friday saw the official opening of the Olympics with Danny Boyle’s colossal Opening Ceremony. From agriculture, through industrial revolution, to music and, finally, the digital age. Here’s what it looked like from the point of view of one of the performers, turning green and pastoral lands into molten metal and industrial furnaces. Incredible.
Looks like a lot of work, and a lot of co-ordination. You can hear people barking out timing orders; see people ushered about, and witness quite how much work went into turning green grass to black metal.
Sounds absolutely ear splitting too; what a ride that must have been to be right in the middle of it. What did you all think of the Opening Ceremony? Did Danny Boyle pull off the British show of the century, or was it a damp squib?
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I thought it was brilliant. I recorded and will watch it again soon. Bond, the Queen, Bean, Sir Tim, the lighting and the songs were the highlight for me and probably unbeatable in the near future.
Absolutely, a real class act. If Danny Boyle doesn’t get a knighthood for his work, I don’t know what will.
What did he get for “Slumdog Millionaire” apart from the Oscars? Didn’t he get some sort of recognition. I’m assuming from your comment that it wasn’t a Knighthood then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Boyle
No, it wasn’t.
To be honest…I thought Mr. Bean was the highlight of the show apart from the whole run and eventual lighting of the huge torch at the very end by the 7 youngsters.
The Bond and the Queen was a nice introduction, can’t blame with that.
I and everyone I have spoken too thought the opening ceremony was brilliant.
All the people that I have seen criticise the opening have one thing in common.. Being American
Surely that’s 2 things that they have in common, being American (and I assume you mean from the USA) and being morons.
I have a feeling they just watched the first 2min then turned it off. I admit I was a bit suspicious at the start, but when Brunel came along I got quite into it!
..May have had something to do with the several pints I had consumed by that point as well
Scanning some of the comments on I think it was the Giz US site, the general consensus was that it was the NBC commentary that let it down.
I agree. If you do a search on G+ for #nbcfail, you will not believe how they screwed it up. One of the links was saying that Australia was in Central Europe. They failed to show the tribute to the bombings. Do not show high profile events live in order to show them at prime time.
That may be the reason ideed.
Edit:
1- Tribute to the bombing victms.
2- They do not show instead of just do not show.
The NBC commentators didn’t even know who Sir Tim Berners-Lee was:
“If you haven’t heard of him, we haven’t either”
Atrocious.
I only started watching the ceremony as I knew several of the performers, and was convinced it would be both boring and crap, and I am happy to say… I was wrong… so so so wrong. It was AWESOME, every single part of it.
I and everyone I have spoken to thought the opening ceremony was horrendous, with the one exception of the friend of a friend on facebook who happened to be commenting on a friends status.
I hope you won’t be offended then if I say that You and everyone you have spoken to ARE CLUELESS MORONS.
Actually I take that back, I hope you WILL be offended.
The friend of the friend is not
But seriously, I think he may have been offended by the Americans are morons bit. I have many friends there and they are all very nice.
I was not claiming that all Americans are Morons – after all, you are an American and Certainly not a Moron.I was not even saying that all citizens of the US are Morons, since I too have met many intelligent people from that country.
I understood it well. I was just saying that he might have not. Specially judging by the way his reply was written.
Well obviously he didn’t understand it, he’s a moron.
Thats a little uncalled for, I didn’t call you a sheepified monkey who would probably be impressed by a oddly cracked flower pot calling it modern art. Also for the record, not that I imagine it would make much difference, I and everyone I spoke to are in fact british.
Hey guys, Acturuszcj is entitled to his opinion, and it certainly wasn’t vitriolic enough to deserve this name-calling. Naughty step for all.
Interesting opinion. Tell us more on this. More on. Moron.
Did anyone spot the ‘deliberate’ mistake by Auntie Beeb?
I’m a little ashamed this one got through considering it wasn’t live, it was in one of the VTs!
Incidentally, living as I do at the mouth of the Thames Estuary I got the Red Arrows flypast about 5 mins before it reached Stratford.
I too thought it was great all the way to the lighting of the cauldron. Then went downhill quickly as Paul McCartney tried to “sing”. He was crap at the Jubilee and he hadn’t improved. I used to be a big fan but his voice has gone and he should just retire.
It was a bit sad seeing Muhammad Ali being wheeled out for it. He didn’t look like he knew what the hell was going on
Must admit, I felt really sad for him too — he seemed utterly bewildered by it all. Couldn’t help but thinking it wasn’t exactly fair to use him like that?
I agree Kat, it’s unfair to get a Beatle to demean himself on the world stage.
Yes Dirty, I not sure of the point of getting Muhammed Ali out there. He should be able to keep whatever dignity he has left.
I too was a little conflicted by the inclusion of Muhammad Ali. Part of me found it uncomfortable to see a great man in such a state of decline, but then I thought about Ali the showman and how he would have wanted to be the centre of attention. If a tiny spark of recognition was kindled from the explosion of applause throughout the stadium when he was announced, then we all shared a special moment.
I agree completely with you on this, his ‘minder’ for want of a better word seemed to be telling him to wave but he hadn’t a clue what was going on. It was almost cruel.
Look on the bright side, no Ringo call up.
I do find it sad with Lennon and Harrison gone that we are left with these pair of talentless ego trips – proof alone that their is no God.
Everything Macca touches turns to crap, he is like an inverted Midas.
I’m a big Macca fan, and have seen him before, but do agree that he sounded atrocious that night. It didn’t help that his backing CD, or whatever it was, stuffed up at the beginning — but honestly, his voice just did not sound good at all.
Spiffin’ jacket, mind.
They should let old celebrities retire as they are not fit for the work they were doing in their golden days. I think it’s disrespectful to taint the memories of great people like Muhammad Ali by showing him as some kind of trophy to be displayed on such occasions. Paul McCarthy certainly didn’t do it for me and they should have seen his performance on the Jubilee concert.
Where was Tower Hamlet’s health and safety inspector when you needed him?
Damn right tolstoy, all those thousands of people subjected to Paul McCartney singing. It’s just not right in this day and age.
Bean was brilliant. Queen and Bond brilliant. I may have fallen asleep during the ‘lets learn our Olympic countries’ section – but you have to have that don’t you.
And in case you don’t know your countries, I just remembered this ‘great’ song from a few years back … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDtdQ8bTvRc.
Having YouTube banned at work, I can’t be sure, but i’m hedging my bets on that’s Yakko’s World…
No Scotland!! Outrageous!!!
(But obviously awesome! Man I miss the Animaniacs. I still remember them doing a Pianist/Penis joke. As a kid, realising that was awesome)
Yakko’s indeed
Good grief, never noticed there wasn’t a Scotland in it! +1 for that
OH it does have Scotland in, I just watched it again. Huh.
Haha you should have played our game. Drink every time you don’t recognise a country, or if their flag bearer was more than a 7/10
I thought it was bob on. I had my doubts before it all kicked off but they were soon laid to rest. The Queen and Bond was my favourite skit and the music that followed shortly after. I never thought I’d hear the Sex Pistols at the Olympics. Brilliant.
I enjoyed it for the most part.
Thought the whole Industrial Revolution transformation took bloody ages to do and my attention wandered to surfing the internet on my tablet several times to relieve the boredom.
Highlight was deffo Queenie & Bond.
I thought it was fantastic overall. I thought the NHS thing and the children lasted too long, as did the social network stuff, but even then I really enjoyed the medleys and multitude of stuff going on.
The first section, building up to the forging of the Olympic rings… I just thought it was absolutely fantastic and mesmerising. The score and hypnotic rhythm of the whole thing, I thought was just perfect. Me and my girlfriend (who is not British) just kept looking at each other in amazement, and we are usually very cynical.
I know most people are saying this but I really loved our opening ceremony. The flag bearing bit wasn’t bad either due to the “Easter Eggs” in the music.
By Easter Eggs I mean for a lot of the instrumental backing tracks for when the teams all came out, they edited them slightly to match each team e.g. A Carribean nation (can’t remember which) got a little whiff of steel drums, an African nation (again, forgot which nation) got some african style drumming. Also unsure if deliberate but the BeeGees came on as Fiji came on.
I don’t know if anyone else noticed a few other Easter Eggs throughout the ceremony. I noticed:
1. They released a weather balloon really near the start (it looked like a stray balloon escaping). But at the very end they showed a video/still of the Olympic Rings in space attached to a weather balloon!
2. Around the point when Bohemian Rhapsody was playing the TARDIS sound played. Although this whole section was about Pop Culture I like to think it was in homage to that episode when they come to the 2012 games and the Doctor lights the torch,
Anyone got any others?
Loved it, though reading the New York Times editorial, it’s apparent that the Americans just didn’t get it. Clearly much of the quirky Britishness was lost on them.
But then again, the giant baby, the NHS, Voldemort, social networking and Dizzee Rascal were odd inclusions, grand performances though they were.
I enjoyed it immensely until Macca turned up. Every time he’s involved with anything I get the impression its for personal gain or a kind of “well why wouldn’t I be involved I’m amazing”, its worse when he’s interviewed as well.
However I do respect that he is an international star,that the games are an international event and that the Beatles are one of the things most remembered about this country/nation but having said this the point of the ceremony was to “inspire a generation” (particularly nice that they chose a group of young rising stars to light the torch to enforce this) and so in my opinion rolling out an ageing musician who hasn’t been relevant and cutting edge/inspirational in the last 10 years was a mistake. Especially as he sung so awfully.
On the flip side the rest of the show was fantastic in my opinion and Bean, Becks, Bond and the Queen (who didn’t look very well or pleased to be there) were fantastic.
Wow, grammar punctuation and a lack of proof reading make that horrible to read sorry! (I blame my 4 year old niece who wants to play hide and seek)
Why is it the Queen seems unable to smile anymore?
I really don’t know, is it fatigue? She also seemed disinterested in the whole shebang and hardly looked up when the GB athletes entered the stadium.
She smiled a lot at the Jubilee though and they looked genuine.
Perhaps the parachute jump took it out of her!
Maybe she was just pissed off, looking out at all the countries she used to own..
Ha!
I thought the same — at one point, she was picking her nails and looking utterly bored! Think it was during God Save the Queen, which she should’ve known would be a definite moment where the camera would be aimed on her…
Some of it I liked, some of it I didn’t like.
This video contains content from International Olympic Committee, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.
Yes, I got that as well, bloody annoying.
I (as a UK tax payer) have paid over £300 (against my will), I think I should be able to see any camera angle I like.
(I would have rather paid for a ferry to Ireland to see the boss)