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London 2012 Opening Ceremony - What did you think?


  

143 members have voted

  1. 1. What are your feelings on the Opening Ceremony?

    • It was fantastic, up there with the best if not the best!
      37
    • It was really good, maybe not one of the best but London did it's self proud!
      40
    • Was good, could have been better.
      34
    • Meh, did not like it.
      9
    • It was poor, was disappointed.
      14
    • Was really bad, one of the worst iv seen.
      9


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Where was Wenlock? Also, no salute to the past host cities, as they usually do.

There was (the past salute to past cities of course), during one of the first videos, they showed all the official posters from the past games in chronological order.

As for Wenlock, good riddance, much like the logo, he's not particularly liked.

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It is incredible how London want to make "different" Olympics. But it was a very vibrant ceremony. I really enjoyed the participation of Mr Bean. The show was more musical than artistic. Missed the Iron Maiden, but the end with Paul was unforgettable. I would give a score of 9/10 for the musical part and a 5/10 for the artistic part that was very poor. Compared with other ceremonies that I watched, Athens is still my favorite.

1 - Athens

2 - Sydney

3 - Barcelona

4 - Beijing

5 - London

6 - Atlanta

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Did like that song & ballet just before the Parade of Nations. Who was that singer & what was the song?

Emeli Sande was the singer, her song *heaven* was also used just as the house lifted up to reveal the www dude.

She is also (if we are to believe the rumours) set to open the closing ceremony.

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my score for this OP is 7.5

it was funny -specially the part of james bond and mr bean- but the rest in some parts were tedious and slow, and it's a shame that lot of britain characters did not appear.

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Will the closing ceremony surpass the opening for the first time? It was so different that in some moments didn't seem an olympic ceremony. They also innovated with the "multiple" lighting the cauldron. No famous athlete but many young people representing other athletes. I liked but i want a single person to lit in Rio. By the way, where they will put the cauldron?

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I think people is pushing a bit hard on scores and commentary.

Yes, the ceremony was a bit rollercoaster (with tops and downs), but it was a very beautiful piece, technically without problems (well, 3 balloons didn't blowed) and full of meanings (ok, specially for britons).

London is hosting for the third time and they tried to make something different. I really didn't expected something much "classic" or "conservative", indeed because it's UK.

I think everybody agrees the music was very nice, the stadium looked great and British presented a very happy side of their country.

Apart of our "judgements", it's party, if people enjoyed to be there - the goal was reached!

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Well, it was quite boring in some parts (the industrial revolution) but I did like it! The closing part was amazing... Na na na nananana... Great way to finish it, also the musical part of tge night was great! I mean it was a ceremony full of Universal history and British as well...

Well done London!! :D but the Athens one was WAY BETTER...

The ceremony was also very funny and innovative... :)

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Disagree. This was much better. This had soul, humor, emotion and joy. Athens had no emotion, humor or joy.

It did I do said this one was really innovative... But the Athens' had feeling, it was quite boring, but it had the feeling of having the olympics back in Greece, also the was the rings were displayed in Athens has no comoaration

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My rating would be something like a 6.5, enjoyable but not as much as an Olympic opening ceremony is supposed to be.

My list of openings would go something like this:

THE GREAT

1) Beijing

2) Athens

3) Sydney

4) Lillehammer

5) SLC

6) Barcelona

THE GOOD

7) Vancouver

8) Atlanta

9) London

THE NOT SO GOOD

10) Torino

11) Calgary

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Pretty good ceremony! I really enjoyed it. Loved the opening and Satanic Mills, James Bond escorting her majesty, Mr. Bean. The musical section thru the ages was a little dull.

I can't rank them in order as each one had good stuff. So instead I'll try to simply describe each one that I watched since I first started watching the games...

LA '84 - Can't remember much

Calgary '88 - Simple but trapped in the 80s

Seoul '88 - Can't remember much

Albertville '92 - Strange

Barcelona '92 - Elegant

Lillehammer '94 - Great

Atlanta '96 - Hip

Nagano '98 - Simplistic

Sydney '00 - Fun

Salt Lake City '02 - Fun

Athens '04 - Simplistic and Elegant

Torino '06 - Artsy

Beijing '08 - Grand

Vancouver '10 - Beautiful on a budget

London '12 - Cool

Predictions for the next two:

Sochi '14 - Artsy and serious

Rio de Janeiro '16 - Fun and Colorful

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Predictions for the next two:

Sochi '14 - Artsy and serious

Rio de Janeiro '16 - Fun and Colorful

I forgot to predict:

PyeongChang '18 - Explosive! (from the north of course) ;)

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The reviews are coming in Down Under:

Memorable start to Games as Boyle gets the balance right

Danny Boyle said last night's London Olympics opening ceremony was "only the warm-up act". He also redirected attention from himself to the 10,000 volunteers who put on the show, saying that the Olympic spirit "resides most purely in them; they are the best of us". He was right, but he was also too modest by half. Boyle's vivid and vibrant pageant set the tone for these Games and perhaps even a new direction for the Olympic movement. Rio has a hard act to follow, which won't deter it at all.

Of many memorable moments - soaring, brilliant, funny, exquisite, breathtaking - two that had not been pre-empted tell all. The first was when the Queen appeared as herself in a film clip, with Daniel Craig, readying herself for a James Bond-style helicopter entrance to the stadium. That bit was fudged, of course. But even Britons in future might see their Queen in a new light, to wit, strobe. Much later, Mohammed Ali appeared briefly, and with much apparent effort, for his a hesitant and remote figure now. Evidently, Boyle is a hard man to say no to.

The other signal moment was to have Rowan Atkinson, aka the ingenue Mr Bean, ham it up in the midst of the London Symphony Orchestra, meantime daydreaming of the upstaging of Eric Liddell in THAT run along the beach in Chariots of Fire. The Olympic stadium is a big house, but it nearly came down then.

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It was not that Boyle was taking the piss, though that is like much else he brought to life this night, a time-honoured past-time in England. It was that he got the balance and tone just right; he was able somehow always to see the wood while watching 10,000 trees.

His show did not take itself too seriously, but was never trivial. It was irreverent, but never disrespectful. It was clever, but did not outsmart itself. It was at once subversive and sublime. This is a country of royals and aristocrats, but Boyle's show rejoiced in the commoner. His rationale for the tribute to the NHS was simple: "Rich or poor, we'll all end up there one day." If it wasn't the greatest show on earth, it was the greatest pantomime.

Artistically, it was genius. Again, you can choose your moment. For mine, the way the cauldron moulded itself from many blazing torches before our very eyes was stunning. It meant that after all the trepdiation and speculation, no one person lit the Olympic cauldron; the occasion did.

Boyle's vision infused the athletes. Soon, the entering teams were acting as if this was a closing rather than opening ceremony, straggling and dawdling and stopping and backtracking to pose for photographs. Australia's disposition and progress bordered on slovenly, urgings of officials notwithstanding. Too frequently still, Australians act as if they expect the world to wait for them. Other teams stood a little more on their dignity.

Only in its rituals and rhetoric, necessary but ponderous, did the night lose momentum, but not for long. By the time Games chairman Lord Sebastian Coe declared that for London, as for the athletes, "this is our time", time was nearly up. But a forgiving humour was upon the crowd and the night. That was Boyle's doing. It was always probable that Great Britain would do ceremonies well. But this was both unexpected and better than expected.

Earlier in the day, Lord Coe said that he would like to be inside Boyle's head, but only for half an hour. Boyle, for his part, said he wanted his show to be remembered as gracious and generous. He has his wish.

Sydney Morning Herald

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I can only say it was a disappointment. Not too good, not too bad, just lacking in cohesion. Some parts were nice but overall I got a feeling of a mess. Maybe too contemporary. I'll give it 7/10.

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Well done, London. I have to say, I was skeptical with much of the branding of London 2012, but I knew these ceremonies were in safe hands with Danny Boyle.

To begin, I'll get the negatives out of the way - like all ceremonies, IMO, there were several.

-The theatrical pace was at times a little awkward.

-I found that, unlike Athens or Beijing, there was wasn't a great over arching theme binding the different segments. It all seemed like the enourmity of British culture and history was far too huge to depict in a way we saw four years earlier - so small, but siginificant parts, of British history and culture were selected (rural past, industrialisation, war and health).

-While some people loved it, I found the youth section a little tiresome. The social media aspect was quite cringe inducing. I think it is one aspect of the opening ceremony that won't date well. Although I appreciate how it ties in with the industrial revolution... I just wish they had celebrated the internet in a broader context - and not specific to dumbing down young people to simply shallow text message chatter. That said, that dancing was great, but I wish the entire youth section had been put into the Closing Ceremony.

-Arctic Monkeys are a great band, but I wish it had been Coldplay, Radiohead or even Muse.

Moving on , what I LOVED:

-I LOVED the NHS nurses segment. Amazing, and beautiful. Again, perhaps would be more appropriate for the Closing Ceremony, but really one of the most human, down to earth and emotional segments in Olympic ceremony history, IMO.

-How this lead into the childrens stories was so beautiful, and nurturing. Danny Boyle recognised here that the Olympic Games ceremonies have a huge impact on the memory of children who watch them. As a 26 year old, I vividly remember how Barcelona 1992 had that child like appeal about it that engaged me as a child - and I think London 2012 has succeeded here, like Sydney did too. I think this is fundamentally where Beijing and Athens missed the mark - their audience were strictly adult.

-The music was amazing, albeit for audio problems with Hey Jude at the end.

-I loved the doves. The bike, and other aspects of that segment reminded me very slightly of the "Under the Milkyway" segment at the opening ceremony of Melbourne 2006. Similar look and vibe.

-Finally, the cauldron. I have to say, London has joined Sydney and Barcelona, in igniting that magic. I can't choose, but London 2012 cauldron is an equal tie with Sydney and Barcelona for the best. I think thats pretty damn good company. Well played, London.

To wrap up, that was easily one the best Olympic ceremonies of all time. It had the right amount of humour, emotion, and prestige. The British have so much world defining culture and history, and to be frank, if they wanted to, they could have very easily produced a very philisophical, high-brow self-reflection (a la Athens 2004) of thier history, but they choose not to. They were down to earth, fun, emotional, and above all, cool. I also appreciated the lack of nationalism, while still focusing on core domestic values.

I might need more time to think about it and let it simmer, but I think London 2012 might be my second favourite Ceremony after Athens 2004.

Well done, London. Australians loved it. Here in Sydney this morning I was at a cafe and people were talking about - people genuinely loved what they saw. Britons have had a tough time recently, but they have so much to be proud of.

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I wonder how other countries who are not expose to british pop culture think of the opening ceremony. How many people in Asia & Africa know about Mr. Bean?

Good point, I didn't think of that while watching the Bean segment....but I was thinking of that and cringing when the Vancouver Closing Ceremony monologue's came on.

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Good point, I didn't think of that while watching the Bean segment....but I was thinking of that and cringing when the Vancouver Closing Ceremony monologue's came on.

I always wondered if the foreign broadcasts had some sort of translation for those, either way they were awful. Same with the slam poet from the opening.

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Now for something shallow, some good old ranking of ceremonies. :)

I'll only rank Summer Olympics since 1980, and Winter since 1992 - because I believe thats where they respectively came of age.

NAGANO 1998 SEOUL 1988/

1. Athens 2004

2. London 2012

3. Sydney 2000

4. Beijing 2008

5. Barcelona 1992

6. Vancouver 2010

7. Lillehammer 1994

8. Salt Lake City 2002

9. Turin 2006

10. Moscow 1980

Honourable mention to Albertville 1992 for the way it experimented with content and emotion, and Los Angeles 1984 for being bold and brash - but I feel it only did so due to the precedent set by Moscow four years before.

I've always had mixed feelings towards Atlanta. It was bold and handsome, it had emotion, but maybe it was awkwardness of staging the Olympics in a city like Atlanta, during the centennial year, but I feel it didn't bring anything unique to the table.

Seoul 1988 felt rather dull, and felt rather anticlimatic compared to the robus LA84 and grand Moscow 1980.

Nagano 1998 was boring, simply put. Probably my least favourite ceremony of recent decades. Sorry Japan!

As for the cauldron lightings themselves, I think London 2012, Sydney 2000 and Barcelona 1992 are tied as the best, ever.

London was amazing, and showed that a cauldron can be mechical, and not be clunky or fail. I think London's cauldron has quite obviously upstaged Vancouvers, which retrospectively looks even more like the clunky, awkward failure it was. Favourite Winter cauldrons are Salt Lake City 2002, Lillehammer 1994 and Albertville 1992.

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