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GamesBids' Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony Live Chat


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That's Measha the big hair is her signature. She's a real diva and a really nice person. A huge cultural asset for Canada.

The woman who sang the Ol

ympic hymn must have had the biggest hair of any opera singer I've ever seen whilst the lighting of the cauldron was a little bit too complicated for my liking with first an inside and then an outside lighting but it all looked impressive in the end.

I enjoyed the whole thing.Most of the effects were fantastic,especially the blowing whales and the boy running across the prairie sequences.Well done,Vancouver!

Saddest part was the entry of the Georgia team.They looked devastated and I wanted to rush out and hug them.I'm sure the rest of the audience felt the same.

Now on with the Games,but first,I must try and grab a few hours kip!! B)

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the artistic segments left you cold.

I didn't say that. I never said that. You're mixing me up with someone else's comments. I said it was the most innovative and inventive Olympic Winter Games Ceremony ever. I think it was even the best Olympic Winter Games ceremony ever (even if I didn't like the fiddling and tap dancing part).

Don't get me wrong, Parades of Nations are pretty magical the first few times you've watched them. Probably what got kost of us hooked onn the Games at an early age. But by the time you need every digit on every limb to count all the parades you see, the tedium sets in. Only the background music, the uniforms and the growing excruciating length change. Great for toilet breaks when you're waiting for Tajikistan to march out and wondering if you've got time to dash to the shops before the host marches in.

I still love it and I always will. I'm not some "newbie", or some young kid, I'm only five years younger than you, at 41 years. My first clear memories of Olympic Games are Inssbruck and Montreal, '76. You may think it boring, but not everyone else feels that way, and not everyone who still loves it is 18 years old or new to loving the Olympic Games.

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I didn't say that. I never said that. You're mixing me up with someone else's comments. I said it was the most innovative and inventive Olympic Winter Games Ceremony ever. I think it was even the best Olympic Winter Games ceremony ever (even if I didn't like the fiddling and tap dancing part).

Sorry mate. I must have got you mixed up with some other comments. Please accept my sincere apology for that then.

I still love it and I always will. I'm not some "newbie", or some young kid, I'm only five years younger than you, at 41 years. My first clear memories of Olympic Games are Inssbruck and Montreal, '76. You may think it boring, but not everyone else feels that way, and not everyone who still loves it is 18 years old or new to loving the Olympic Games.

Oh, fair enough. And I'd agree, you can't have the ceremony without the parade. I'd be the last to ditch it. But there must be ways to jazz it up a bit. It's become too unwieldly and long IMO.

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I'm only five years younger than you, at 41 years. My first clear memories of Olympic Games are Inssbruck and Montreal, '76. You may think it boring, but not everyone else feels that way, and not everyone who still loves it is 18 years old or new to loving the Olympic Games.

Sorry, six years younger, actually.

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I've just rewatched some parts of the ceremony -- and I can only concur with Walei: Now that I've coped with the initial "cauldron shock", I think that Vancouver has delivered a very good opening ceremony. The artistic part even was one of the Top 3 in Olympic history. It was warm-hearted, emotional and passionate (something Torino actually wanted to present but failed to do so -- maybe because it tried too hard) and it offered great images. The organisers and producers can't be blamed for the lack of passion of the audience during the parade of nations. And OK, there were a few timing and technical flaws (the Olympic Ring snowboard jumper starting too late, both flags not flying properly, and the now already-famous cauldron failure), but the stunning projections and performances in the artistic segments make up for very much of that. And the Furtado/Adams cheese dip can be easily forgotten as well.

For me it was an 8.5 of 10.

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Actually, a bit has been made of the audience passion. But was it because they were encouraged to bang those drums rather than clap or cheer? It was well into the ceremony that I realised that what almost could have been mistaken as muffled boos was actually the beating of the drums by the audience.

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I've just rewatched some parts of the ceremony -- and I can only concur with Walei: Now that I've coped with the initial "cauldron shock", I think that Vancouver has delivered a very good opening ceremony. The artistic part even was one of the Top 3 in Olympic history. It was warm-hearted, emotional and passionate (something Torino actually wanted to present but failed to do so -- maybe because it tried too hard) and it offered great images. The organisers and producers can't be blamed for the lack of passion of the audience during the parade of nations. And OK, there were a few timing and technical flaws (the Olympic Ring snowboard jumper starting too late, both flags not flying properly, and the now already-famous cauldron failure), but the stunning projections and performances in the artistic segments make up for very much of that. And the Furtado/Adams cheese dip can be easily forgotten as well.

For me it was an 8.5 of 10.

I second that.
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It was well into the ceremony that I realised that what almost could have been mistaken as muffled boos was actually the beating of the drums by the audience.

YES. I mistook the drums for muffled boos too until I realized people were actually banging the drums they were given.

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Actually, a bit has been made of the audience passion. But was it because they were encouraged to bang those drums rather than clap or cheer? It was well into the ceremony that I realised that what almost could have been mistaken as muffled boos was actually the beating of the drums by the audience.

i thought i was hearing laughter after a serious portion of the ceremony. it wasn't until they showed pictures of the audience that i realized they were drumming. definitely a cool idea but i don't know if the execution quite came off. perhaps it sounded better live?

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For me, it was an OK ceremony - a wonderful show! Congratulations Vancouver! Congratulations Canada!

NB: I didn't know about that problem with the cauldron.... do you know why? SolarTV presented the entire ceremony without commentary!

I haven't heard about that moment of silence - the TV channel took a quick break during it.

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we heared your rants. i think enough is enough. you've been ranting all throughout the ceremonies, in fact days leading to it you were already ranting.

For me, it was an OK ceremony - a wonderful show! Congratulations Vancouver! Congratulations Canada!

NB: I didn't know about that problem with the cauldron.... do you know why? SolarTV presented the entire ceremony without commentary!

I haven't heard about that moment of silence - the TV channel took a quick break during it.

i did get the moments of silenece. it was well executed. as a previous poster said re: the cauldron malfunction think of it as a homage to the fallen georgian luger instead.
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That's Measha the big hair is her signature. She's a real diva and a really nice person. A huge cultural asset for Canada.

Actually I thought the Olympic hymn was one of the lesser performances of the night. The cadence and speed was all wrong...too slow and not energising or inspirational. The best performance bar none was that by Sissel at the Lillehammer OC.

By the way, isn't it a tad pretentious that whenever the hymn is played at ceremonies like Olympic OCs the audience has to stand? I'm no protocol expert but usually you stand for a national anthem, not some music composed for a non representative private organisation with some fairly dodgy members. Fair enough it was 'Oh Canada', 'God Save the Queen' etc etc but not for this piece of non-representational music.

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For me overall it was a good ceremony.

I really liked the visuals. The Orca whales were awesome. I thought the music was good.

I didnt like the rendition of O Canada and the flags were a disaster as was the lighting of the flame.

The crowd wasnt into it as much as I would have liked.

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Maybe for the finale of the Opening Ceremony they could have had a commemoration for the 1 month anniversary of the Haiti earthquake by having We Are The World 25 for Haiti perform?

Have the performers walk one by one and sing their parts on stage, then having the whole stadium singing towards the end? It would have been dramatic, and perhaps Andre Phillipe Gagnon could have made an appearance!

Perhaps it may have not have been so appropriate, but would have been nice.

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yeah - I aspected something completely different - that was really unusual for a Canadian audience..

well peoples paid 500$ to be there... they arent representative of canadian population. i'm sure that the peoples to could of lift the stage were at home lack of fund to be there.

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