Olympic Opening Ceremony

So they decided to mock the Last Supper

God had the last laugh there, though 🌂🌂🌂🦆💨🌧💦

When I think of the 2012 opening ceremony the only thing I really remember was James Bond and The Queen. I still remember gasping when she turned around at her desk and we realised it was really her. I've just watched it again on YouTube and it was amazing, even better than I remembered.

I suspect the same will happen with Paris. I'll remember the outstanding performance by Celine Dion that made me cry, the amazing ballon with the flame. And no doubt the blue man.

Highlight moments in both which will be great memories.

You could say that for a lot of things. I always think that when I see royal events in London.
But I am the type of person who would rather stay home with a glass of sauvignon blanc on most occasions!

Sorry, RosieChardonnay

A glass or two of chardonnay 😃

If you were standing on the river bank in the pouring rain waiting for the next spectacle or trying to watch it on a screen because the action was elsewhere you might think that you might as well have stayed st home and watched on TV, in the dry, with a glass of sauvignon blanc.

Ahhh and breaks might explain it.

Yes. Definitely large periods of nothing.

You see my point though. And understanding this desire in an age where that's true more than ever should be part of planning.

I think you can almost make the opposite point, if it's in stark contrast to the rest of the show. The horse running for ages would have worked if the rest of the show hadnt been so disjointed.

It was transition and coherency where it failed. The pace didn't work. I don't think it was considered tbh. You can do a lot with pace if you plan it well. It didnt seem planned.

There were things happening all the time!
Although I watched it on TV with ad breaks. I do not know what was happening when the ad breaks were on. If you watched on BBC with no ads there might have been periods of nothing happening maybe???

I think we also managed a time line. Last night was disjointed.

There is always something happening in a stadium show. It's constant and you don't get massive sections where you twiddle your thumbs. This is true not just for London but every ceremony I've watched. (I don't think I've missed one since 1984). I expect the long walk in with the athletes but you get to look at their outfits and their flags. I expect the boring bit with the speeches. But the rest of the show I expect things to be happening even if I don't understand the references.

London 2012. There were moments where there were so many things going on at once you almost over loaded. No such opportunity last night.

Thats what I wanted and expected.

The problem is lots of people want constant entertainment. They have no patience. Anything which is not boom, boom, boom is classed as boring. I think the time gave opportunity to reflect on what was going on and transition to the next thing. It was such a wonderful spectacle with so much going on. But we are all different and can have different opinions on this and that is what makes life wonderful.

The balloon (I thought) was a reference to the Mongolfier brothers who invented it. They were French. Could be Jules Verne too.

It was the bizarre queer take plus just odd low level choreography and one by one dancers doing their thing

I can’t recall ours too well but this was just strangely the mix of those two things you mention

I am not saying it was great, there were bits that definitely dragged. But it was clearly designed to showcase a lot of French cultural achievements.

We had James Bond and the Queen.

They had a sweaty blue nude dude and drag queens.

A torch ceremony that went on too long.

Honestly I felt I was watching the unwanted love child between Eurotrash and Britain's got talent.

That wasn't the problem for me. It was the huge sections where nothing happened / it took so long to transition to the next bit. That's what made it disjointed. Like I say why the sign language guy on his own for so long. Massive missed opportunity right there. And the horse was great but in terms of holding attention for as long as that section was? No. The comments last night were along the lines of "please show us the next interesting thing" on numerous occasions. The never ending cat walk just wasn't that interesting. And when something happened in that scene it was going to offend millions. I didn't necessarily want to understand the references, but I did want to be entertained. Loads of it was just boring and waiting for the next thing. Is that french culture?

That too, and Léon Gambetta's escape from Paris under siege in 1871, and the Montgolfier brothers who invented ballooning in 1783. Loads of symbolism and cultural references throughout.

The balloon at the end = Nadar the photography pioneer.

Oh, I thought it was a reference to Jules Verne and Around the World in Eighty Days or Five Weeks in a Balloon.

Silly me!

He's got a degree in French, so he said.

But he still didn't know who Nadia Comaneci is! 😮

I mean London 2012 had loads of stuff that the rest of the world didn't get, and so did this one. The library threesome = Jules et Jim, classic new wave French cinema. The big boat oitside rhe Conciergerie = the Paris motto Fluxtuat nec mergitur. The balloon at the end = Nadar the photography pioneer. Etc.

celine dion was wonderful

She was! Amazing.
Wonderful, emotional song by Edith Piaf and Marguerite Monnot.

andrew cotter was worth his pay for the translating he did

And you might have expected it to rain in Britain but Paris?
No! Never!
That poor piano, I could weep.

i laughed and laughed so much at the blue smurf man
celine dion was wonderful

Brits are actually massively self deprecating

Which was obvious from some of the 2012 opening ceremony, the Queen and James Bond scene for instance.

I couldn't find anything that was meant to be amusing in the 2024 ceremony, although some was unintentionally so.

It was like the curate's egg.