Olympic Opening Ceremony

[TheGreenKnight]

Watching the opening ceremony. AIBU in finding it boringly grim. Especially when compared to London 2012.

The South Koreans have lodged an official complaint as they were introduced using North Korea's official name (I'm led to believe this happened in 2012 too but to do it again is just unforgivable).

Well, I was bemused RedToothBrush but thought it must be me!

I thought having two non French tennis players in the boat was odd. Obviously going for the star factor.

I liked it but bits were too long eg the catwalk bridge and the horse on the river.

Lady Gaga and Celine Dion being French? Rafa Nadal on the boat not French either. I think a French Canadian singer is the nearest the French have to a world star.

There are challenges to producing a moving ceremony and there were some great ideas in this. It was way too long and surely those in the grandstands just looked on screens.

The sound of the rain on the microphones spoilt the sound. A few sturdy gazebos would have helped. It was also widely reported that they hadn’t sold all the tickets. Can you imagine London not selling out?

I agree our River Pagent for the Queen didn’t really work. We now have a culture where athletes don’t attend either. Very small group of Team GB on the boat.

Geez @ForGreyKoala how many times do you need to accuse Brits of being superior? Can you not just let people say they enjoyed something and that's it? I'm pretty sure I've seen your name crop up on other threads too. Brits are actually massively self deprecating, why is it that when they find something to be proud of or get behind their national team certain people get so upset and start slinging insults at them?

Did you see how everyone else on the thread could say negative things about the Paris opening ceremony without insulting French people who enjoyed it? Maybe you can learn something from these wicked Brits.

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.

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

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

andrew cotter was worth his pay for the translating he did

celine dion was wonderful

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

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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???

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.

Ahhh and breaks might explain it.

Yes. Definitely large periods of nothing.

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.