olympics opening ceremony

So I watched the Olympics opening ceremony.

Well, I actually recorded it and then watched it the next day.  The original ceremony lasted something like 3 and a half or four hours, but I only spent about an hour watching it.  The reason for that was that I skipped through a lot of it and also had a lot of it on fast forward.

The bits I skipped entirely were the parade of nations and the speeches.  The first seemed to take hours, which isn't surprising, I guess, since there are something like 200 and odd nations taking part.  The speeches I just didn't really care, but it also felt like a great big comma in the whole thing.

I have to confess I also fast forwarded a lot of the first segment.  It all seemed to take a bit too long for me and also there was a lot of dancing in what I felt was a sort of Andrew Lloyd Webber musical style.  I think this stuff was probably a lot better if you were there.

One of the good things about watching on TV is that you can get close ups.  If you're there you might not see things that close up (unless you have binoculars or a camera with a zoom lense).  However, the down-side is that you have to look at what they show you.  When you're there you can focus on the bits that interest you.

The very first section was a big "pastoral idle" that was then transformed into a kind of industrial landscape.  The idea of the whole ceremony was to present a lot of British cultural stuff, so obviously the theme there was the industrial revolution.  But I had a couple of problems with it.

Firstly I think the impression was supposed to be how nice the pastoral stuff was and how grimy and oppressive the industrial stuff was.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the industrial revolution was a barrel of laughs but the country life pre-industrial revolution wasn't exactly a happy fun-time.

Also, this whole section lasted far too long for me.  However, the end of it, which was a clever introduction of the rings and a very striking image of the rings showering sparks was good.  It also kicked off some stuff I enjoyed a bit more.

As I say, the whole thing was about presenting Britain and British culture and on that front I don't know how a lot of the stuff would have been understood outside of Britain.  A lot of it was quite subtle and specific.  For example, I don't know how well known the Eastenders splash screen is - would people from China know what the hell that was referencing?

However, I don't want to give the impression I thought it was bad.  There was a lot of stuff I really liked, especially the use of music.  There was also a great segment where it was about children's literature, which was really clever.  Also the NHS was a nice thing to pay tribute to - the whole idea of the welfare state is a truly great British idea.

There was also a good amount of humour with Rowan Atkinson and the whole Bond thing being obvious highlights.

So overall I'd say it was good, although I'm glad I recorded it and watched it later.  Danny Boyle did a really good job.