Just some of my thoughts about the opening ceremony.
Gee I don't know, there was some great moments and ideas, but it felt like a jumbled mixture. Lost track of any theme.
The first 1/2 hour - 40 minutes perhaps, was the best. The story that started with the 'hobbits of the shire' version of England and then the transformation to the industrial revolution through to the making of the ring and joining with the others was the best worked out part. Set the bar high (too high perhaps). That's the sort of grand spectacle I want to have WOW me every 4 years at an opening ceremony. The whole arena being transformed from the shire into bleak landscape was very well done. The chimneys rising and the factory equipment coming out of the ground all really good. Oddly showing the bad side of society's transformation as much as any improvement, good to have a social comment to make, but is this the place?
But then on, odd things. Like really, a featured segment of the NHS with some sick kids in hospital beds?? The Australian commentators dropped their normal sycophantic 'reading off the notes' by actually questioning what they were seeing.
I mean the idea that was in there of a little kid reading a book that then starts to show some of the creations of UK writers makes sense, but then it went back to the NHS storyline which ended with a big baby in bed, sort of a large doll head and a rippling bed-sheet. That just looked odd.
The Mr Bean segment was great, the first time that there's been a genuinely funny comedy moment in an opening ceremony.
The James Bond with the Queen segment started strong, but then became a helicopter flight and a poorly carried out gag where she was supposed to jump out and parachute before James Bond. The real life parachuters never headed into the stadium so then there was a poor tie-in to the Queen's arrival where she and prince Phillip walked to their seats with no acknowledgment of the footage we'd just seen There was never going to be a 'pay off' to the joke, so it wasn't really worth doing in the first place = my opinion.
There was another segment, 2 young people out on the town, through the decades with the different songs of the times. But it revolved around him trying to return her mobile phone?? There was status updates from the group of friends as they travelled through the 60's and 70's ??? It was poorly thought out and felt like an ad for a mobile phone company. Then the house lifts up and inside is the guy who invented the internet. HEy wHat???
So lots of different stuff, fireworks were good.
Also another point: At the end I found it odd that there was no final person of note being the one to lite the cauldron.
