Let's talk Olympics

[xxMATTGxx]

I thought the opening ceremony was great. I thought it was going to be crap when I seen the farm land idea but I changed my mind quickly when it all kicked off. The stage, lighting and everything was quite good and I enjoyed it going through the stages.. Also GirlNextDoor, I'm not going to lie but any country hosting the Olympics - Surely the whole idea is to try and make it better than the previous one? Lol.












More photos from: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/201..._ceremoni.html

[dbgtz]

Beijing 08 was better in my opinion. The teen love crap was absolutely unreal and cheeky. Both teens were of different race, clearly hinting that GB has always been accepting to other races which is so not true and misleading as well. Racism still exists no matter what. Paul McCartney was boring. Why on earth did he choose to sing 'Hey Jude'? omf stupid song choice. and oh mr bean. i'd say he was the highlight of the event but putting him in the orchestra and all those funny faces were so disrespectful not only to the orchestra but yeah, to himself too. Cheap humour and I just never thought royal stunt or beautiful LED lights would impress so many people. They just show how desperate GB was to make sure its opening ceremony is better than Beijing's. And shame on David Cameron. I expected more than just reading directly from the script ffs. Very disappointing

Were there not enough fireworks?

Sorry but I just watched the pre-flag part of the Beijing opening and I was pretty bored, it could have been much more lively and used better music and the fact that the kid is just lip singing because the actual singer isn't "cute enough" seems to make it worse for me. Admittedly the teen "love story" was awful, but if you ignore that idea the segment was pretty decent.

[lawrawrrr]

The first part was honestly astounding. I don't think it can be COMPARED to beijing - it was just so different. Less fireworks, less pretty dances, but everything was spine-chillingly good. I do think that the 2nd part (everything after the kids literature) was not as good, but beijing didn't exactly keep up the same standard all the way through either, yknow? It definitely showed the great British variety, and the diversity just showed how we're not as racist (on a whole) as we used to be.

[GommeInc]

Beijing 08 was better in my opinion. The teen love crap was absolutely unreal and cheeky. Both teens were of different race, clearly hinting that GB has always been accepting to other races which is so not true and misleading as well. Racism still exists no matter what. Paul McCartney was boring. Why on earth did he choose to sing 'Hey Jude'? omf stupid song choice. and oh mr bean. i'd say he was the highlight of the event but putting him in the orchestra and all those funny faces were so disrespectful not only to the orchestra but yeah, to himself too. Cheap humour and I just never thought royal stunt or beautiful LED lights would impress so many people. They just show how desperate GB was to make sure its opening ceremony is better than Beijing's. And shame on David Cameron. I expected more than just reading directly from the script ffs. Very disappointing

You seem to have too high a standard...

Assuming the show was meant to point out acceptance with the two teens of different races (quite a stretch to assume such a thing) - then the UK is one of the most accepting countries on the planet. Racism will never be absolutely irradicated, that would be ridiculous, but in this country we're more accepting of other races than you would expect. I think you've read far too into it to be honest.

Hey Jude is known across the globe - did you not see the the close up of one of the Olympic Teams that were singing along, load and proud? Other than that, Paul McCartney has had his time, it was one part of the show people accept was rubbish, mainly because he's an old fart who can't sing and has sold out.

He was put into the Orchestra on purpose. The Orchestra wasn't planned to just play Chariots of Fire on its own, it was scripted to have Mr. Bean in. How can it be disrepectful when no-one was offended by it? Again, you've read into something or completely missed the point of that part of the ceremony.

What else do you expect David Cameron to do? If he went and did a speech all on his own people would complain he was diverting attention. Besides, the whole point of the Olympics is to not be political, so he wouldn't be allowed to say much.

Also, the organisers of the event did not aim to out do Beijing. In fact, the idea was to focus on what Australia did with Sydney 2000, by getting whole communities involved and focusing on different cultures within the country and the legacy it has - music, literature, acting, humour....

[GirlNextDoor15]

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True but very ironic.

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Have you not seen enough LED lights?
Beijing was mesmerising in its brilliant way but London was too misleading and ironic. And what did you mean by better music? UK definitely took one or two ideas from Beijing in terms of expressing their own culture. But still, Beijing was better than London even though it might not give you the warm and cosy feeling etc. However, Beijing had successfully poured out 5000 years of history in just a few hours. Compared to London, it felt like they were partying or watching a circus with a few 'good' performers instead of celebrating Olympics. London kept emphasizing on how amazing its history has been but it's not. It looked like they were dying for praises when they brought out all these childhood stories which were only creative but didn't tell much about GB's history. They persuaded the Queen to jump off the helicopter but the Queen is just a human being who eats, sleeps, drinks and ages like how all of us do. I don't really see the big deal of the Queen parachuting. Might be even better if they could find other 86 y/o athletes to parachute. That might show how enthusiastic they are for Olympics. The Queen? Nah. Maybe they wanted the Queen to do it so that we'll laugh.

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I wasn't expecting too much. Just what Olympics should be rather than showing how 'accepting' a multinational state should be. Whoever will thought of letting Ban Ki Moon carry the Olympic flag lackadaisically. I didn't expect to watch a circus full of random songs or whatever. The coordination wasn't there. And I don't see how accepting UK is. More of how busybody UK is in other people's business. That's the reality and changing the perception of how one should view UK through Olympics won't actly change anything really. UK may be more accepting of other races but I still don't see how. The name callings like bacon etc. You know it better. So, tell me how is UK accepting? And I always wonder why Paul McCartney. Elton John's not dead .
And yes. Mr Bean's there for nothing except for cheap humour.
The whole show's just for laugh and giggles imo. Didn't really impress me except for the parachuting part. How desperate.

[xxMATTGxx]

Silver medal for Lizzie Armitstead (Team GB) - Fantastic!

[xxMATTGxx]

Rebecca Adlington has just got TeamGB a bronze medal - She did great considering.

[lawrawrrr]

Go tancock!! I do like the swimming events ;D


in other news i pre-ordered the opening ceremony soundtrack CD - yay!

[xxMATTGxx]

Loving the amount of support and cheers TeamGB are getting during the events.

[Lee]

Atmosphere is great I agree whilst GB are on, I am surprised really never expected such a reaction for some reason.