Comments | jkahane: Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies, Late to the Show

jkahane

Olympic Games Opening Ceremonies, Late to the Show

Jul 28, 2012 23:28

I know that most folks have already watched the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, either live or the various re-showings of them the last day or so, but I've finally managed to catch up with them and check them out on one of TSN's re-broadcasts of the events ( Read more... )

personal, olympic games, thoughts, tv hut

Comments 4

britgeekgrrl July 29 2012, 05:07:19 UTC

The Parade of Nations will *always* be too long cos, um, 204 nations in the world (or participating, I forget which)

Unless they all come in at a sprint, that will always be the slowest bit of the event. Every nation deserves equal time, after all.

PS I'm with you re: the queen and james bond, bit. The intro film was adorkable, but the skydiving thing? Hm, maybe I'm showing my monarchist side, but I didn't think it suited either the dignity of the event OR the monarchy...

waiwode July 29 2012, 14:28:22 UTC

I agree with "Britgeekgrrl" -- and you can't really expect the athletes to move faster than a walk on what is supposed to be a promenade.

To me it's a critical part of the ceremonies, and all the rest of the music and dance stuff, entertaining as it is, is fluff.

I absolutely loved the cauldron this year -- although I was puzzled by the weird copper thorn shaped things (the petals) being carried with each contingent earlier, and wondered if they were supposed to be stylized cornucopias or something.

Doug.

anonymous July 29 2012, 17:49:04 UTC

They deliberately had the drumming go faster during the parade to move them along.

My favourite bits were the smokestacks making the rings, the lighting the petals of the torch going up into the flame and I enjoyed the James Bond meeting the Queen part.

The Queen is always looking a bit glum these days but then she is getting on a bit now.

They were going to include a short homage to all the Doctors in the ceremony but it got cut to keep the time down. So in the end we only got the Tardis landing noise.

jkahane July 30 2012, 15:15:19 UTC

Maybe they did have the drumming tempo increased to move them along, but it didn't seem to work all that well, did it?

I also enjoyed the whole rings bit, the lighting of the petals, and the lighting of the Olympic flame the way it was handled, but the business with Bond and the Queen was very tacky.

How do you know about the planned, and then abandoned due to time, homage to Doctor Who?