I guess the Brits would get a thrill out of the Bond/Queen thing. But what little I have been able to get from You tube on the opening ceremony....I wasn't impressed. I can't get the Olympics on my Satellite (too cheap to pay for the local stations). But sheep running around etc etc and the Queen didn't impress me.

WHat did you think? Would love to see the Gymnastics.

I saw it on NBC.

NBC decimated it for the American audience and covered most of the audio with loud, ignorant people doing voiceover.

As a result, I don't feel qualified to comment on the actual event.

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Chakravartin
I saw it on NBC.

NBC decimated it for the American audience and covered most of the audio with loud, ignorant people doing voiceover.

As a result, I don't feel qualified to comment on the actual event.

Agreed, including some chest pounding and flag waving that really had no place in it.

I torrented it and still haven't viewed the whole thing, but just based on the first few minutes, the BBC version looked a lot more interesting. I was able to get a feel of the production, as the director had intended.

I read that the opening ceremony was not as impressive as in China.

I'm still deciding which version to download and watch - USA, Canada, GB or Australia

and of course it can't be compared to the incomparable Chinese version...

I read a nice writeup on it... that is was a presentation from the post empire Great Britain - a presentation that was saying, 'this is who we are now...' while China's was saying, "We're here, we're rich... get used to it..."

you're a week late.

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IMHO, it was a hodgepodge of themes that made no real sense and that had no coherently presented connections between them.

It was a poorly imagined collage that just did not work for me.

It was made more sad by comparison to the Beijing spectacular.

The best moments were the few at the very beginning with the Queen and Bond. It showed "Her Majesty" in a down to earth role and I think it must have charmed many viewers. It did me.

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gl @ Dana Point, CA

we talked about it last week on The Other Side.

US audiences were denied a very poignant moment that captured some of what I felt was missing from the ceremony.

What NBC Didn't Broadcast

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"Success isn't about how much money you make. It is about the difference you make in people's lives."--Michelle Obama

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graylocks
we talked about it last week on The Other Side.

US audiences were denied a very poignant moment that captured some of what I felt was missing from the ceremony.

What NBC Didn't Broadcast

I really hate to say that this was another example of a poorly staged piece. The song was sung so stiffly, the dancing, which had some good elements, had some pretty bad camera direction with shots that changed angles at the worst moments. Like when the little boy was approaching the man. Suddenly all you saw was the very top of the child's head. What was that?

All in all and overall, the whole opening was a bad presentation, made worse by the camera direction, which for me, had the effect of chopping everything into bits and pieces. Bits and pieces! Hmmm… that's actually very British, isn't it?

Of course, it's rare that camera work on dance presentations is any good. Same problem… the camera jumps around at the worst moments, so that you lose the beauty of the choreography.

I have seen some gorgeous moments in ballet that were photographed by someone with both a photographer's and a dancer's understanding of the movements. As I said, it pretty rare to see.

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gl @ Dana Point, CA

i was touched by the singing. didn't think it stiff at all.

as i said in the other thread i felt the london event lacked poetry. i did not like the combination of live spectacle and film. when you have the palette of a whole freaking stadium then use it. i felt the film segments were a lame cop out.

it is hard to top the Beijing Ceremonies. I don't think any other country is so aptly culturally equipped to control the movements of so many individuals. i loved the spectacle even as i shuddered to think of the level of onethink it took to pull off.

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"Success isn't about how much money you make. It is about the difference you make in people's lives."--Michelle Obama

I haven't watched it, but the Brits I work with said "It would make very little sense unless you really grew up in Britain, and even then it wasn't that great". Take with a grain of salt.

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Shamelessly pitching my driving blog: [prndloser.com] (Now actually up and running again too!)

I agree the announcers with NBC acted like jerks with their smarta$$ remarks.

The ceremony it self started off fairly well but lost my attention as it went out.

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Grateful11

I put up with the whole mess for a chance to see Mike Oldfield, who I thought was great:



Unfortunately the obnoxious and continuous banter of Matt Lauer, Bob Costas and Meredith Viera ruined even that.

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JoeM

I enjoyed it. I just let it present itself to me. Matt wasn't all that into it until he saw David Beckham (he perked up then). This was the kind of thing where Katie Couric would have shined. Pair her up with Robin Roberts.

There's no way they could've topped Beijing so they used lots of children choirs throughout the ceremony. Critics can not bash children choirs. It was a safe and smart move on the Brits.

The opening ceremony was based on the evolution of Britain, from pastoral village life, to the industrial revolution that made Britain the 19th century world superpower that also blighted hugh swathes of the country especially the Midlands, through two World Wars and subsequent National Health Service (yes, honouring socialized medicine, scenes performed by real-life doctors and nurses), followed by the huge influx of immigrant holders of British passports from countries throughout the British Empire (yes, what goes around comes around), technological revolution (Britain invented the jet engine, radar, etc.), and ending with modern day multi-culteral funky Britain including a segment depicting terrorism (that was not broadcast in the U.S.). The venue was East London, until this Olympics a very rundown area, not somewhere you'd want to walk at night. Certainly different than Sydney and Beijing but all-in-all I thought a fitting opening ceremony apart from too much emphasis on music at the end. My 2 pence worth.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2012 07:09AM by yeoman.

Sounds like good for Brits, not so much for the rest of the world.

Well, I wish I could have been there to see all of it instead of the bits and pieces I've been able to glean here. "I'm sorry, we can't show this content in your area."

To me, the tribute to victims of terrorism was truly moving, just lovely.

More I liked a lot: the torch relay around the country, with the journey along the Thames; the 204 leaves making up the cauldron, and then the spectacular lighting ceremony; the progression from rural villages (Middle Earth?) to modernity; the forging of the rings. And the cameos: come on, who couldn't love a flock of Poppinses? Voldemort? Captain Hook? Bond and the Queen? Branaugh as Brunel? Mr. Bean?

The UK isn't China, after all, and I thought the ceremony (at least the parts I've seen) very fitting indeed.

I am looking forward to the closing ceremony. I won't be watching it, I'll just be glad when it happens.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

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samintx
Sounds like good for Brits, not so much for the rest of the world.

I don't think this is true. I think most people can relate to the transitional pain that stems from the rural, agrarian lifestyle to the 'dark satanic mills' of the Industrial Revolution. From the idyllic Hobbiton to The Tower of Orthanc !

True, there was a lot of detailed storyline that might have been less easy to follow for the historically uninitiated (and this is where solid commentary matters, which didn't happen on NBC), and I'm not sure what the 'lovestory' was all about, although I liked the house.

There was a lot of beautiful and inventive imagery, but less of the pure razzmatazz!

I think if you could have watched it in its entirety without the badly placed advertising slots and with commentary that made sense of it rather than confusing and obfuscating, then you might feel differently.

Swings and roundabouts I suppose.