Yeah, Ali did... But he was a part of something much bigger than sport at time.
London 2012 Opening Ceremony
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Yeah, Ali did... But he was a part of something much bigger than sport at time.
Did you hear Danny Boyle talking about directing Pacino?
Pacino decided to play this comic role at half-pace, which sucked all the humour out of it, and fecked the show up. He wouldn't listen to Boyle and kept doing it. So Boyle came in one day and told everyone they were playing each other's parts for the day. He gave Pacino's to Jon Goodman, who did it at like three times the pace, and it was funny as feck, everyone was pissing themselves. Pacino came up to Boyle afterwards and was like, "Don't ever do that to me again, don't humiliate me in front of the cast." But then when they opened he played it at the normal speed.
Actually it might not have been Boyle, maybe that was just primed by the thread. I guess we can find out by googling the play and seeing if there was a giant Valdemort/inflatable baby in it for no reason.
Pacino decided to play this comic role at half-pace, which sucked all the humour out of it, and fecked the show up. He wouldn't listen to Boyle and kept doing it. So Boyle came in one day and told everyone they were playing each other's parts for the day. He gave Pacino's to Jon Goodman, who did it at like three times the pace, and it was funny as feck, everyone was pissing themselves. Pacino came up to Boyle afterwards and was like, "Don't ever do that to me again, don't humiliate me in front of the cast." But then when they opened he played it at the normal speed.
Actually it might not have been Boyle, maybe that was just primed by the thread. I guess we can find out by googling the play and seeing if there was a giant Valdemort/inflatable baby in it for no reason.
And that's my point. Beckham shouldn't be a national treasure. He was a good footballer who happened to be very good looking.
Was it weird having the black industrialist? I mean, we all know there was never any such thing but modern sensibilities demand that one be included. If you want to give a history lesson then surely you should go for accuracy.
What a bunch of loons. You should take a look at the rest of their forum.
A bit like RAWK in some ways.
What is your point? That somehow Sachin is more than a mere ball whacker? Or Pacino isn't just an actor?
I was annoyed to hear so many wanting Beckham to either carry or light the torch. Why? For all he has done for the country he isn't what someone like Redgrave is. Beckham has had plenty of honours within his own sport.
Exactly. It's not the same thing but it's a similar point.
For a developing nation struggling to find its feet and looking for heros and looking for hope, one cropping up means a hell of a lot more than when it happens for UK which is already already developed.
Someone who isn't into cricket or sport will call that an exaggeration but I think the point stands.
Not really, they were just trying to make a feeling of inclusiveness. Which is understandable when trying to represent modern britain looking back at history. Plus, I don't think any of them, Brunel aside was meant to be anyone in particular, so therefore if they were fictionalized anyone could play anyone.
What was weird was having a black man play the Duke of York in Henry V in the recent BBC production, as that just teaches people incorrectly and re-writes history, because the Duke of York was almost certainly a white-man. I suppose it comes down to poetic license and the flip side of the coin would undoubtedly be saying, well Orson Welles played Othello etc., So it represents some sort of double-standard.
That's great, but it doesn't make them more than just a man, just very skilled at what they do. Yes, Giggs is just a footbaler, Sachin just a cricketer, Pachino just an actor.
My point was regarding Beckham. Some people deserve the crazy adulation they get. Beckham isn't one of them. His achievements to adulation ratio doesn't quite make sense.
Of course they're still just men and professionals. But they deserve the incredible adulation they get is my point.
Ricky Hatton performing 100 knock-outs on overweight bouncers, followed by three laps of the stadium, then the lighting of the torch by himself would have been unexpected, harder to achieve and more inspiring for the world to see.
Do black people get concerned with inclusiveness any more? I just don't know...you put a black face in and it looks weird, you don't and people complain. I suppose you can't win.
I don't think anyone said otherwise, who has an issue with recognizing talent? My issue is that people turn respect into crazy obsession, which in turn is the point about Beckham.
I couldn't possibly answer, being white. But that's almost certainly the feeling from the producers, I'd warrant.
That would have been incredible.
Yeah, but then the "Britishness" of it woud have had to be based on innacurate stereotypes from American made films, and it would have been even shitter.
Every one one of these things I've watched, whether it's Olympics, World Cup or the build up to a UEFA draw, I've needed the narrator to constantly tell me what the feck is going on, and usually even with that, still haven't had a clue what the feck was going on.
Why does last night suddenly fall under a completely different set of rules?
I've never watched one of these things and not thought it was shit. They're usually only worth watching at all for the unintentional comedy value.
I didn't think this one was shit. It was mildly entertaining nonsense that managed to keep my interest...apart from the 6 hour long flag parade (I'm sure a country called "Toblerone" came out at one point).
I don't think it was a work of genius as people seem to keep saying, but it was fun. Plus there were lots of nice touches that actually went against the grain with these things. It stuck two fingers up to a lot of the people I wouldn't have expected it to. This made me want to like it.
The NHS part obviously, but not just that. Having Redgrave and Beckham both carry the torch, but then hand it over to a bunch of unknown kids to perform the couldron lighting. I loved that. I think Redgrave's a twat and him or Beckham lighting it would have meant nothing to anyone. The kids lighting it made Redgrave look far more noble and made some kind of statement. Plus, if one of those kids ends up winning a medal or even just competing at an Olympics somewhere later in their career, it could actually be pretty iconic.
Doreen Lawrence carrying the Olympic flag. The contruction workers forming a guard of honour for the torch. Even the Mr Bean thing...I found it funny simply because I know people who would have been infuriated by it.
All in all I quite liked it. Still a giant overspend of money, but then, so is hosting the olympics in the first place. It also pales in comparison to the money currently being wasted by the knobheads trying to destroy the NHS. If it gets a few more people to wake up to what the Tories are currently doing to this country, it would have been worth it just for that.
That's what I was saying. That there are some people who deserve it but Beckham doesn't. I was basically agreeing with you.
I'm having a shit day of putting my opinion across today. I must post even more 
Completely agree with the above Noodle.
Found the NHS message very poignant.
Found the NHS message very poignant.
Then essentially, I was also agreeing with you. We both won.
So that means it cost £1 per person. Good value
I enjoyed it overall and the two main iconic images - the rings 'forged' from steel and the bowl thing at the end lit by future olympic stars - were fantastic.
Fair enough. Politically I had no issues with it. Aesthetically I thought it was a mess, and the fact that they're always a mess doesn't change that (though the Chinese one wasn't a mess, it was cracking totalitarian theatre).
It's normal in British theatre these days to have ethnic actors play historical white roles.
It wasn't completely inaccurate to show a black guy of that time as a wealthy boss and not a worker. There were examples of successful black businessmen at that period in British history, like Pablo Fanque who ran a hugely-successful circus.
http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/bios/Pablo_Fanque.htm
Yeah, see that's my own little prejudice jumping out of it's cage. Of course a black actor can play a white character.
I guess, if we're to take the long view about this kind of thing, it's little different to female actors playing male parts & vice versa...which is an age-old theatrical tradition. Perhaps this upsetting of standard casting offers new perspectives on what might be well-known characters grown stale.
Hollywood Shuffle deals with the problems of black actors in Hollywood in a very funny way. Well worth a watch.
Some of you really should apply to appear on that Grumpy Old Men programme.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/28/london-2012-nbc-opening-ceremony?newsfeed=true
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/28/london-2012-nbc-opening-ceremony?newsfeed=true
I mean I do think there's a problem with it, which is that you lose the illusion a bit. Rather than being fully immersed in the drama, a part of you (a racist part? I dunno) is thinking, "Yeah but one of the Greek chorus is a black guy, what's he doing in Corinth in the Age of Heroes?" Same with women playing men and vice versa. I even feel this about Brian's mum in Life of Brian... you lose the suspension of disbelief, which is important even in an absurd film. (The same goes for the spaceship bit.)
All that has to be weighed against the fact that otherwise basically one black actor gets to be in one Shakespeare play. Which I think is rightly seen as a worse outcome.
One of the saddest things about this so-called innovative casting is that, I suspect, the shock/controversy/novelty value is more important to those who implement the casting than any genuine innovation or the different perspective offered by 'old' characters given new life, as it were. It's more cynical and unimaginative than inspired and novel.
What the world thought of the opening ceremony.
US
US media coverage hailed the British eccentricity of the opening ceremony, praised the humour, puzzled over some in-jokes and mused on what it all said about the country’s search for a post-imperial identity.
The New York Times headlined its review: “A Five-Ring Opening Circus, Weirdly and Unabashedly British”.
Sarah Lyall, the newspaper’s London correspondent, wrote: ”With its hilariously quirky Olympic opening ceremony, a wild jumble of the celebratory and the fanciful; the conventional and the eccentric; and the frankly off-the-wall, Britain presented itself to the world Friday night as something it has often struggled to express even to itself: a nation secure in its own post-empire identity, whatever that actually is.
“It was neither a nostalgic sweep through the past nor a bold vision of a brave new future. Rather, it was a sometimes slightly insane portrait of a country that has changed almost beyond measure since the last time it hosted the Games, in the grim postwar summer of 1948.”
The Washington Post wrote of an opening ceremony “full of sentiment, cheekiness” in a piece entitled: “Summer Olympics open with rock and droll”.
The newspaper continued: “If the Opening Ceremonies of the London Games sometimes seemed like the world’s biggest inside joke, the message from Britain resonated loud and clear: We may not always be your cup of tea, but you know — and so often love — our culture nonetheless.
China
Zhou Libo, a leading comedian and a host on “China’s Got Talent”, the Chinese version of the UK TV show, commented that “2008 Beijing was solemn, 2012 London is humour. Solemnity and stateliness tells the world you are strong. Humour lets the world feel you are strong; it’s about confidence.”
Huang Jianxing, one of the best-known sports commentators in China, also stressed the light-hearted nature of the ceremony. “Its strength was its humour and self-mocking tone. You could see that even the Queen was enjoying it.”
Ordinary Chinese were positive about the ceremony too, contrasting it to the much more formal Beijing 2008 Olympics ceremony. “I was shocked. I’d never have thought that you could have an opening ceremony like this,” said one Weibo user named Li Lingdang. “There was singing and dancing, JK Rowling, Mr Bean, James Bond , Beckham….The opening ceremony for Beijing was splendid but London’s was more individual.”
Australia
The Sydney Morning Herald said Danny Boyle displayed artistic genius in a brilliant balancing act. “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.”
Robyn Archer has been artistic director of innumerable Australian and international arts festivals and is presently creative director of the Centenary of Canberra. Archer was wowed by the fun of the ceremony’s grand scale.
“All I could think of was how much fun these guys [the creators] would have been having. You can’t do that level of spectacle inside a theatre,” said Archer. “That’s where you see the hand of Danny Boyle, a film maker who is used to working on sets of scale.”
The Queen’s willingness to participate in the fantasy element of the show will be long remembered.
“The king hit for me was the Queen and James Bond. It’s fantastic, it’s very funny, it’s iconic. It also shows her ability to be able to get into it, the fact she was willing to do that is spectacular,” Archer said.
Greece
Greeks this morning praised the ceremony as an entertaining show, but criticised what they described as a performance that was “too British” and lacking in messages of the original Olympic spirit. They said it was “too much of a big party” and carried a “sense of exaggerated British national pride and a sense of humour which not all the world understands.
“It was a successful, entertaining show, more like a big musical, a rock opera, a big party, rather than an Olympics ceremony,” said Panos Samaras, dispatched to London to cover the ceremony for Greece’s state-run NET TV network, the one which has the exclusive rights for coverage of the Olympic Games. “The British managed to successfully present their transition from an agricultural to an industrial and then high-tech society. But it was a musical that would have been more suitable for the Closing Ceremony than the Opening one”.
France
Sports newspaper L'Equipe, wrote: "To offer a morsel of bravery with the bombastic music from the film Chariots of Fire, but to then turn it into humour thanks to Mr Bean; to show the Queen of England, as herself, but then to show her parachuting above the stadium; to set up immense scenes paying homage to the NHS. The organisers of the London Games succeeded on Friday evening in creating enthusiasm with an opening ceremony that took the classic from such events and had fun with them."
While daily paper Le Parisien said: "So British....an opening ceremony that was magnificent, inventive and offbeat drawing heavily on the roots of British identity".
Germany
The German newspaper Die Welt praised the opening ceremony, calling it “spectacular, glitzy but also provoking and moving”. It also focused on the Queen’s cameo role alongside 007 Daniel Craig in the James-Bond feature, with the headline the “The New Bond Girl is 86”.
“Often seen as reserved and unapproachable, the Queen changed all that alongside James Bond,” said the paper.
Die Zeit hailed the London ceremony as the perfect “counterweight” to the opening ceremony in Beijing, which, for all its wonders, had “authoritarian traits”.
“The ceremony in London, with its dancing and humour, was much more relaxed. It was creative, it was the Spirit of London,” the paper said.
In a commentary piece the Suddeutsche Zeitung contrasted London 2012 with the 1908 Olympics, when the capital city, which then ruled a quarter of the globe, first hosted the city. Comparing the bluff and confident Britain of the past with the present, the paper said the latest games “might actually help Britain in its difficult search for an identity” which for many Britons “is not entirely clear”.
Russia
Several Russian observers seemed bemused by the episode in the Olympic Stadium dedicated to the NHS, in which children jumped on beds in their pajamas. One said it was “incomprehensible to non-Britons”.
Another wrote: “The participants of the ceremony forgot to take their night-time tablets and their beds have turned into trampolines.”
However, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister and the head of its delegation in London, appeared to be enjoying the show. He tweeted a picture from the stadium of fireworks bursting over the Orbit Tower.
Georgy Cherdantsev, one of Russia’s leading sports commentators, declared the ceremony “magnificently conceived and brilliantly executed.” He added: “After today’s spectacle there’s no point in Brazil spending money in 2016, they should just begin the competition straight away.”
India
Under the headline “Londoners let hair down for big party’, The Hindu noted that a city noisily split between what it called “Olympists and non-Olympists” came together for the opening ceremony, “seduced by hype and promise of spectacle”. The show itself was a tour-de-force, the paper said, adding that there was a refreshing lack of public whinging and moaning and concluding that it was impossible not to catch the Olympics bug.
“Queen in a helicopter, Beckham on a boat — what more can you ask for?” asked the Daily News and Analysis. “If anyone doubted whether or not the title ‘Isles of Wonder’ was far-fetched, they won't now,” it went on, concluding that “all in all, it was carried out with speed, skill and perhaps most importantly, with affection. That is how it should be.”
The tabloid Mail Today managed to get a picture of the fireworks onto its front page, under the headline “London Dreams”, though its coverage, constrained by print times, concentrated on India’s woes in the archery balanced with two pages on the old colonial power’s failure to overcome Senegal in the men’s football, under the headline “Senegal prick British balloon”.
The Indian Express thought the opening ceremomy “brilliant, cheeky too” while the Times of India thought London “presented a vibrant picture of Great Britain's rich heritage and culture”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/ol...he-world-thought-of-the-opening-ceremony.html
I was pleasantly surprised by the ceremony. I was actually expecting it be shite but it was actually pretty good. Some corny bits but for the most part fairly professional and well done.
It was tough following the Chinese, they really had the wow factor but compared to otehr past ceremonies London measures up well.
It was tough following the Chinese, they really had the wow factor but compared to otehr past ceremonies London measures up well.
I think its disgusting that NBC cut the tribute to the London bombings, even more disgusting that they are trying to justify it by saying it was not tailored to an American audience. Tasteless in the extreme. There is a whole world outside the USA, not that they would know. Imagine us totally blanking 9/11 tributes?
I loved that Danny Boyle 'took no prisoners' and captured modern day British identity in the most coherent and transparent way demonstrated thus far. He nailed it. This is who we are.
I loved that he did things that are the barmiest of idea's, The Queen with 007 is the stuff films are made off ... and it happened in real life. Boyle took performance art to another level. it was an iconic tour de force of British society, identity. culture, creativity and ingenuity.
Whatever the past ills or contributions of these islands to the world in the past, today, GB is on so many levels a wonderful place. We should remember our fortune, relative to other nations, when we whinge and whine.
I hope this moment was a flag in the sand in terms of history. Teachers should make young teens watch this so they understand the history of this little Island, and the privilege they have to be British.
To be honest, it made me proud to be British (something as you know I sometimes struggle with) and proud of my east London roots.
As an archetypal Little Englander, sorry Great Britisher, I thought it was brilliant - showed our literary, scientific and engineering pedigree coupled with typical self-deprecation and quirky humour.
Even managed to sneak in Enola Gay and Dambusters themes as a counter to a surplus of multiculturalism and leftist references.
As good a job as Danny Boyle made, I just wonder how someone even more eccentric such as the late lamented Ken Russell or Peter Greenaway would have presented it.
No way we could adequately improve on the organisational perfection of Beijing, so why bother. Top that Brazil.
Even managed to sneak in Enola Gay and Dambusters themes as a counter to a surplus of multiculturalism and leftist references.
As good a job as Danny Boyle made, I just wonder how someone even more eccentric such as the late lamented Ken Russell or Peter Greenaway would have presented it.
No way we could adequately improve on the organisational perfection of Beijing, so why bother. Top that Brazil.
Am I the only one who thought the Queen flashing her knickers as she parachuted down was sexier?