The relay was nuts.
Just outrageously nuts.
The relay was nuts.
Just outrageously nuts.
In a sense, they *are* reading from scripts - no-one gets to see the entire opening ceremony in advance, so shortly before the broadcast they're given transcripts that say what's happening, and what it means. Since so much of the ceremony consisted of interpretive, symbolic stuff, that kind of assistance is necessary.
Also, the view of Chinese history that they provided wasn't exactly "revisionist". The opening ceremony basically covered China from ancient times through to the late middle ages, and they didn't exactly have communism back then. It's not evil outrageous censorship, it's just that their performance focussed on the high points of their civilisation. Do you think the London Games opening ceremony is going to include Bloody Sunday, Churchill's ADD, and Tony Blair?
Yeah, I agree with Big D. I thought NBC wasn't too bad. They did point out things like "China may not be there with peace and harmony, but it's working towards it."
I really wouldn't have been thrilled anyway if such a beautiful ceremony was punctured by "and this symbolizes the Tienanmen Square massacre!" and things like that. This is supposed to be as peaceful as possible.
That's a sweet camera angle they have for synchronized diving. It goes from the board to underwater!
China owns diving.
Have they had a cheesy anthem song this year? (ie 1996 was Celine Dion's "Power of the Dream", 2002 was LeAnn Rimes' "Light the Fire Within", etc.) Those have typically been my favorite thing about the Olympics.
I like Kung-Fu.
OH MY GOD IT'S MICHAEL PHELPS TIME!
EDIT: False alarm. They're just showing how their slow-mo saved a volleyball girl's ring.
They have a 'theme song', but they're not hyping it and it hasn't been played a lot.
Interesting news: they've just admitted that part of the opening ceremony was faked via CG, namely the firework 'footprints' stepping toward the stadium. A fine piece of special effects work, though, and probably a good idea since the real thing could've misfired in so many ways. Still pretty cheeky, though.
Virtually all of the opening and the fireworks were real, yeah - it's just those footprints that weren't.
As far as I remember, there've usually been under-16s in various events, mostly gymnastics and diving.