bythebay

I was wondering that at first but after rewatching it, it became clear that he snuck back in the pipe and exited through a backdoor after he held up the red ball. What aired on tv was a video segment that looked almost exactly like the Tron portion in Sochi's OC, when it cut back to the live performance I saw him already walking towards the stands.

I think labeling an Olympic ceremony as "theatre" is putting it in too small of a box. Artistic in nature yes, but I would rather call it a "showcase", whether it be historical, cultural, artistic, or popular culture, it's all relevant when it comes to showcasing a nation. In that sense, I think Japan succeeded to show the world what most people love about Japan in the modern era. Leaving out traditional elements in their show was a good decision in order to stand out from Beijing's ceremonies. What Japanese people lack in emotion, they make up for in style, ingenuity and technical abilities. Like I said, they played to their strengths. You can't expect a break dancer to express their abilities the same way as a ballet dancer. Japan just happens to be the breakdancer, lacking in grace and artistry but not in showmanship and what they did was entertain their audience. If that's not your cup of tea you're entitled to that but again, what to you was cold, to me was cool so to each their own.

You say it was COLD, I say it was COOL. I don't think Japan has anything to prove when it comes to being high tech, people all over the world for decades have been aware of Japan being at the forefront of technology. Japanese people for the most part are very unemotional, the polar opposite of Brazil's fun loving, passionate, and upbeat culture so I didn't expect them to portray something they weren't. They had two angles to showcase their culture, and that was either the traditional route, or the modern route and I'm glad they chose the modern route. They played to their strengths and highlighted what the world is familiar with Japanese pop culture. Mario is arguably the most famous video game character ever created and it was nice to see them play that 1 up (pun intended). While the segment didn't exactly show anything groundbreaking, I was very entertained and I thought everything oozed a very cool Japan from the music, the set pieces, the costumes, the dancing, the choreography, to all the pop culture references. I think of Japan and Korea to be culturally similar almost like the US and Canada, but Tokyo delivered a high energy show that had a totally different feel from Pyeongchang's very dull ceremony.

I think it would be a great idea to make the Olympic schedule flexible according to the host city up to 4 weeks. It would alleviate the need for multiple venues especially when they need to be constructed from ground up. There's 2 aquatic stadiums in Rio's Olympic park, which is unnecessary since water polo can be played in the same pool as the swimming events, but due to lack of time within the 2 week Olympics window is why there's 2 separate venues I'm guessing? With a 4 week schedule you'd have plenty of time to use the same venues for multiple sports. Besides the sports that require their own facilities such as equestrian, bmx cycling, beach volleyball, canoe slalom, etc. which are mostly outdoors and temporary, sports that require more permanent facilities can be shared when split into two separate rotations. Instead of week 1 and week 2, the schedule should say first half and second half so it can be split from up to 3 or 4 weeks. Gymnastics can have first half and basketball can have second half using the same arena, so can indoor volleyball and handball, swimming and water polo, even the velodrome can use their center field for the lesser attended sports in separate halves. I think any strain on a host city with the extended schedule is naturally offset because the events are more dispersed (time wise). This would also prevent a lot of white elephants.

I think London was riding this timely wave of positive press and worldwide attention leading up to 2012 regarding everything British such as the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, Will and Kate's wedding, and British artists such as Adele and One Direction garnering a media love fest. Public interest of British pop culture was high in 2012 and the London Olympics was the crest of it all, even Harry patiently waited til after the Olympics for another scandal when he showed the world his bum. Brazil on the other hand has been riding the opposite wave of negative events and media attention regarding their country and the Olympics in general leading up to 2016. From public backlash, recession, Zika fears and polluted waters on the Brazil end to bid cities dropping out, ballooning costs of hosting, and doping scandals on the Olympic end, it's been a perfect storm. So all in all, public interest has been soured toward Brazil and these Olympics, which could be causing the lower viewership. Just as Sydney and London mirrored in execution and legacies from their Olympics, it looks like Brazil has so far taken the Athens route (delayed construction, empty seats, economic and political turmoil) and we'll just have to wait and see what the post Olympics has in store, but so far during the games just as Athens did, Rio is pulling it together. I think come 2024 whether it's Paris or LA, after a tiring 3 consecutive games in Asia, the Olympics will have a different, probably less celebratory but more optimistic tone with renewed public interest.

There's an empty lot in Century City along Avenue of The Stars that sits right on top of a future Metro Purple Line that's the exact size just for an arena, probably not enough to add a parking garage though. There's a proposal for an office building on that site but I assume the land can be sold and repurposed.

I don't think the Inglewood stadium would be good for ceremonies. It's already in the direct path of the LAX runways and it's gonna be sunken about 100 feet or so to accommodate that. The ceremonies might be a little too distracting for flights coming in, the bright lights on game days are nothing compared to the visual mayhem of Olympic Ceremonies, plus how would they incorporate fireworks? I think the Coliseum location is perfect for ceremonies especially with Downtown LA as the backdrop, it just needs a lot of TLC. The Inglewood site however would make for a great backup Olympic village in case Piggyback Yards fall through, that is unless their timeline for the residential part of the project is well underway. In that case, I would suggest Taylor Yards a few miles up the LA River from Piggyback.

I like the idea of finding local Olympians for the cauldron lighting and final torch run. The William sisters would make good candidates but I'd really like to see Misty May and Kerri Walsh considering they played a sport LA is most recognized for and originated there. They're more associated with Olympics than the William sisters are. Also, Greg Louganis would make a better choice than Caitlyn Jenner if they're thinking about making a "statement".

After seeing the bid book, I'm disappointed they removed Long Beach entirely from the venue plan. I think that's a shame because Long Beach would've been a visually pleasing backdrop for the water events. The Marine Stadium would've been great for rowing as well as sailing alongside the Queen Mary. Along with that came the events at the Long Beach Convention Center and Long Beach Arena. I know Long Beach feels isolated from the region, but this is a lost opportunity because Santa Monica is the only beach city in the bid now with just a few events and it would've been nice to showcase more than one beach city, as LA is known to be heavily influenced by it's beach communities. I think the organizers wanted to keep as many events as possible within LA city limits and with the help of some reshuffling, the Long Beach cluster was pretty much sacrificed in favor of the Valley cluster as to not make the venue clusters appear too spread out, and probably so they wouldn't disappoint 1/3 of LA's population. This was an inferior move imo, who would trade Long Beach over the Valley? Hopefully they'll revise this aspect of the bid down the line.

10,000 - 15,000 units

Union Pacific owns that lot which is currently a rail yard called the piggyback yard. It's an ideal location sitting next to the LA River near Union Station, which is practically LA's crossroads for all major transit lines (perfect for an Olympic Village). The ones in charge of restoring the LA River, Army Corps of Engineers intend to include that lot as part of the restoration project, however, Union Pacific is holding off selling the property for a higher valuation which is putting the restoration project out of budget and on hold. The LA River project will be funded by the feds, state and city, so to answer your question yes, it's safe to say the land won't be sold anytime soon on current terms and still be waiting for the Olympics all the way til 2025 (The 2032 Olympics selection year). The piggyback yard is about 120 acres so it's the right size for an Olympic Village. Downtown LA is currently experiencing a housing boom so that land will be very valuable in the future, however that's not the case right now because Downtown LA has so many smaller empty lots in other ideal locations available for developers to grab. No developer would be willing to prop up 10,000 - 15,000 all at once in Downtown LA's current maturity level unless there's a need to get that many units ready all at once in one location, which is what an Olympics would do. So the Olympics would really be the catalyst to get the ball rolling on LA River's restoration and the icing on the cake for downtown LA's resurgence.

Anybody see Iron Man 2? A lot of the movie was centered around a fictitious expo in flushing meadows. It looks to me they were almost showing how an Olympic park could look like in that site, albeit a little over the top. That is the only location in a major city in the US where a feasible Olympic park can be built similar to the ones in Beijing, Athens, Sydney, Barcelona, etc. Maybe a lot of the venues would have to be temporary, but atleast the land is available for it to be constructed on and is served by mass transit, with a few permanent venues already in place.