2012 Summer Olympics: The Thread

[Sara Fontaine]

The Opening Ceremony was spectacular during the Industrial Revolution section, and I was maybe too excited to see Kenneth Branagh appear as Isambard Kingdom Brunel quoting Shakespeare. I loved that entire piece, especially the music. Then it went odd, for me, personally.

Though I must say, the Child Catcher on rollerskates, though only shown briefly, was quite awesome. (The fact I've been given cause to say that sentence amuses me.)

 

[robot slipper]

No Iron Maiden?
No Genesis?
NO TOLKIEN?
NO DOCTOR WHO!?

I took the giant iron-forged One Ring thing to be a Tolkien reference, though that might be a bit of a stretch. But yeah, could have done with a giant flying TARDIS or something. I'd say that's far more representative of awesome British tv than those clips they were showing on that glowing house thing (with the exception of Fawlty Towers).

And Hey Jude is feeling a bit tired now, especially with Paul McCartney looking very old. I think it would have been way more awesome to finish the show with Brian May and Roger Taylor playing Bohemian Rhapsody with someone else singing (obviously).

 

[Terratina.]

My only real complaint was the choice Rugby songs at the beginning. Should have been Calon Lân for the Welsh

Yeah, 'Bread of Heaven' (or whatever it was.) isn't particularly Welsh, is it?

Instead of the boys choirs, they should of had the manly Welsh male voice choirs. But I guess that children were used for the 'cuteness factor'.

 

[Andrew_C]

I found the entire ceremony (apart from the Athletes entering the stadium and the Queen declaring the Games open), pants wettingly retarded, embarrassing and boring.

They even made the lighting of the Olympic flame boring.

And isn't Mohammed Ali getting a bit old to wheel out at every opening ceremony? It's not like Britain doesn't have any famous black Olympians.

Can anybody expain what hell was it with the music? Heroes? Enola Gay? Dark Side of The Moon? Come Together? Were they trying to be "eccentric" or just thick.

 

[Kragg]

The only thing that ruined it was the Queen. I think she embarrassed the country by cleaning her nails when her own team walked out into the arena. And the 'I declare the games open' speech she gave sounded horribly forced and almost as if she didn't really want to be there. Oh, and lets not forget the fact that she had a face like a thundercloud for most of it.

Ah well, still great over all

thats just how the queen is nowadays though, she was like that for most of the Jubilee stuff aswell, sadly for kings and queens there is hardly ever a way to gracefully retire, no matter how good you were in life, youll be a dribbling idiot by the end of it

i really liked the event, bond and the queen and i really loved the music bit, maybe cause im 25+ from europe so it brings back alot of memories from when i was very young. Watched it on the bbc, so even some bits i didnt get like the kidcatcher were explained, maybe thats why americans didnt like it, toom uch stuff they didnt get

 

[fish iron4]

Is it kinda sad how I think that the best part of the opening ceremony was Rowan Atkinson?

 

[In Search of Username]

I still have no interest in the sports, but that opening ceremony was a lot better than expected. Trust Danny Boyle to go and include a celebration of the one thing our current government would rather we didn't celebrate - the NHS. And, heard a bit of Fuck Buttons in there, too, which always improves everything.

Now to ignore it until the closing ceremony. Bye!

 

[AnarchistFish]

Why the fuck is this country so hellbent on criticising itself? The ceremony was great. The concept for the olympic flame was brilliant. Apparently the atmosphere if you were there was immense, but I liked how Danny Boyle took a different take on it rather than trying to outdo Beijing, which would never have worked. Only problem is that some other countries might not get some of the references. I'm wondering how many people thought the Mr Bean act was a genuine cock up.

I live in London and love watching the Olympics, but ironically I'm going to Ecuador in a few days time so I'm gonna try to pack in as much of the Olympics as I can in this short time.

Now that the British are done making a fool of themselves on the world stage, a question for our British escapees. Will you be ever able to live this down?

ugh

 

[RoyalWelsh]

If i'm honest, I thought it was going to be rubbish, what with me being typically British, however I must say that was quite a bloody good show. It was fun, serious and light hearted all at the same time. Definitely one of the funniest opening ceremony's.

<3 Rowan Atkinson.

 

[Palademon]

I don't even like the olympics and I thought they did a good job with the opening.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

There's a thing on the Beeb [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19025686] saying basically everyone in the world thought the opening ceremony was brilliant.

I like the Washington Post guy saying were 'A country in managed decline'. Basically a nicer way of saying the country is going to shit, which it is.

 

[MammothBlade]

I'm hostile to this whole Olympic thing. Especially with how aggressively commercialised it is, it's run for the benefit of corporate sponsors.

And who the f**k thought it was a good idea to let the kings of junk food COCA-COLA and MCDONALDS become sponsors.

There's a thing on the Beeb [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19025686] saying basically everyone in the world thought the opening ceremony was brilliant.

I like the Washington Post guy saying were 'A country in managed decline'. Basically a nicer way of saying the country is going to shit, which it is.

Who is this "everyone" you speak of?

And it's true, this country IS going to shit and this is a waste of time and money which was never going to benefit the economy in the first place due to the exclusive sponsorship deals.

 

[Josh123914]

Hmm, I loved the Mr. Bean skit, along with the fact that the Queen is now a Bond girl because of the opening helicopter bit.

 

[Dectomax]

Now that the British are done making a fool of themselves on the world stage, a question for our British escapees. Will you be ever able to live this down?

Now that you've understood just how much Britain's given the world, might you actually go and read a history book? -_-

The opening ceremony was demonstrating all of the things Britain did FIRST and BEST; which pretty much covers the entire founding of the modern world.

 

[Andrew_C]

Can anybody expain what hell was it with the music? Heroes? Enola Gay? Dark Side of The Moon? Come Together? Were they trying to be "eccentric" or just thick.

In case you weren't aware, practically every new trend in rock and popular music of the last 50 years has been led by British bands and artists. Of the top 14 selling music artists of all time, half of those are British. Rock and pop music have been one of our greatest exports, and the segment was designed to showcase that.

"Heroes" is a song about how nice it would be if we weren't a bunch of fucked up druggies.
"Dark Side of The Moon" is about insanity.
"Enola Gay" is an anti-nuclear protest song framed as a regretful love song/break-up song to the bomber that dropped the A-Bomb on Hiroshima.
"Come Together" - Who knows? drug filled orgies? World Peace? World Peace through drug filled orgies? your guess is as good as mine.

Just because they are great songs, which they are, doesn't mean they are appropriate for an Olympic opening ceremony.

And Mr Bean is nothing more than an annoying waste of Rowan Atkinson's enormous talent. I understand why he does it, but it got boring long ago.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Don't wanna start a shitstorm here, but everytime I've heard the Americans talk about the Olympics, especially in the media, it's been to criticise how we're managing it. Don't really get that. Who the fuck's Mitt Romney to comment on this?

 

[Private Custard]

I swear to Christ, if I started a thread on oxygen, half the twats on this forum would be climbing over each other to post how much they hate it!

Jesus guys, lighten the fuck up!!

 

[ChildishLegacy]

I swear to Christ, if I started a thread on oxygen, half the twats on this forum would be climbing over each other to post how much they hate it!

Jesus guys, lighten the fuck up!!

What's so good about oxygen? I swear it's been overrated in the media, I'm sure a lot of us could do just fine without it, and it's been given a free ride due to all this PC, gaseous equality bullshit.

 

[Seagoon]

I liked the opening ceremony, apart from the Arctic Monkeys and Paul McCartney.

... and didn't Mohammed Ali look... well, dead?

Well, considering his terrible Parkinson's Disease he looked pretty good. Also, Y U HATIN' ON THE ARCTIC MONKEYS?

 

[Mr_Spanky]

I liked the opening but I must admit there did feel like there was something of a political agenda at work. I mean I KNOW that Britain, and London imparticular, has an awful lot of different etnic groups and thats something (speaking at least for myself) that we should be proud of.

But there was an element (particularly if you arent a proponent of multicultralism) of ramming that point down the collective throat that made me feel a little uncomfortable sometimes.

The start with Kenneth Branagh and the Chimneys rising and all though - that was the best part imho. Actually made me feel homesick for the first time in ages.

Oh and Paul Mcartney? He wasnt there. In fact he tragically died a few days before the ceremony so he couldnt have been there. So. Good that everyone now knows that.