Am I the only one watching the Olympics opening ceremonies? Because WTF am I watching?
Am I the only one watching the Olympics opening ceremonies? Because WTF am I watching?
First it starts with a comedy video which turns into this weird creepy thing about kids running through the Paris sewers, encountering an alligator, then getting rowed out and into the Seine by a ghost and it cuts to reality and all the nations are going down the river on boats past a bunch of water jets because they're not doing this in a stadium.
This looks awful and ridiculous. Compare this to the spectacle of London 2012.
Now they're doing some weird old Hollywood movie musical style musical number with Lady Gaga and she's on a staircase, which is... somewhere in Paris?
I am so fucking confused.
Edit: They just cut to Macron and he looks as confused as I am.
It's France. If it weren't some weird avant-garde art statement, people would probably be disappointed.
I've re-watched that Gojira performance like 10 times. The beheaded Marie Antionettes were <chef's kiss>.
I'm getting old and have watched a lot of opening ceremonies with all of this art that they have to explain the meaning to you.
In front of an in-person audience of hundreds of world leaders and live to the entire world, the French chose to depict their final monarch that they deposed and beheaded while playing death metal and opera. That's one of the most badass things I've ever seen. And the announcers didn't have to explain to you how badass it was.
Technically, they had a few more monarchs (Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis Philippe I) after Marie Antoinette's husband even if you don't count the two emperors. The fifth republic looks unlikely to lapse, though
The decapitated Mary Antoinettes singing operatic methal from a palace's windows were cool.
That wasn't just cool, it was badass! You can rewatch it here: https://youtu.be/cJowjYixfEs
If this is legit a thing that happened I'm kinda mad I missed it.
It was Gojira, a rather famous french metal band, with Marina Viotti, an also famous franco-swiss opera singer.
it was real !!
Ok, now with Celine Dion performing Edith Piaf on the Tour Eiffel I'm getting the peak France feeling I got for peak UK in London 2012, lol
Yep agree.
By far the best part. Celine was astounding and that balloon thingy is outrageously original. The light show too.
There was a metric shitload of what the actual hell going on in the run up to it. Not inherently bad in the main - but just not very well put together. Disjointed, way too drawn out, incoherent.
Thank goodness they had a decent ending.
Who was Parkour Bansky? Does anyone know? Was a tad worried they were going to skitter off a wet roof on live TV.
Edit: Seen Gojira on replay. Excellent.
I was disappointed that part petered out. I didn’t expect to see who was inside, but assumed at some point we’d see them hand the torch back off to the end. Instead it was just like Zizou had it again with no explanation and handed it off to Rafa. I kind of wonder if there was supposed to be something more but they had to cut it because it wasn’t safe to do in the rain. It already seemed a little risky with the segments that were live and had someone running along those wet metal roofs (but was funnier to then see the obviously recorded segments filmed when it was dry and sunny).
I thought the metallic horse running down the Seine was never going to end..
The second half has been much better than the first. The light show on the tower has been great.
I always find it strange when host nations choose performers from the non-host nation. Like why is Gaga there? She’s not French.
I wonder how many celebrated French singers are upset that she opened the performance while mangling the French language? Like, I don’t think she did terrible, but was also clearly not a native speaker
I wonder how many celebrated French singers are upset that she opened the performance while mangling the French language?
The answer is probably none. The Olympics is a celebration of multiculturalism not just the culture of the hosts. If anything, it speaks about the impact of colonialism and historical french cultural hegemony during the XIX century.
Oh, and she does speak french, with an accent, but she does speak it.
Honestly the people who care about this sort of thing are way more upset that a black gasp woman gasp sang rap gasp for the opening ceremony. I'm talking about aya Nakamura.
Gaga, ooh-la-la?
She is even used in memes because one of her lyrics sounds like "I don't wanna be french" which makes it even funnier
Eh, you know what? I like it. Go weird
It's weird, but not in a good way. Not for me. It's just so completely disconnected. There's nothing that unifies it at all. It's just random weird stuff. Lady Gaga does an old fashioned Hollywood number, sure. There's a weird Assassin's Creed faceless person doing parkour with the torch, whatever. Headless Mary Antoinette sings a song. I guess. Robot horse for five minutes... okay... get on with it.
A lady sings Imagine and I hope she doesn't burn to death because of the GIANT FIRE in the piano behind her? WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING?
...the Aristocrats :D
The horse rider coming down the seine was quite spooky. I'm surprised there hasn't been any nudity
Did you miss the gender fluid threesome?
YouHadMyCuriosity.jpg
It was at first. After five minutes, it had lost anything that made it impressive to me.
The best part so far for me has been the montages of previous Olympics. Those were terrific.
Right now, I'm feeling sorry for a lady who has to stand there and hold an umbrella over the guy speaking.
I think the problem there is by spreading it out along the Seine it became a little more challenging to balance the presentation for viewers on TV than for people actually watching in person. It takes time for a boat to get from up by Notre Dame all the way down to the Eiffel Tower/Trocadero where the dignitaries were. If they were in a stadium like normal they would’ve just had the horse do a lap and it would’ve been done in a couple minutes because everyone saw it at the same time. Overall I liked it, but I can see how that would get old for some people.
Welcome to the Olympics this happens every time. Mark my words when the Olympics come to the state we are going to do our damndest to out weird France.
It'll just be 500 people firing tracer filled machine guns into the air, fireworks being launched off the deck of an aircraft carrier, and a finale centered on an ICBM being detonated offshore to the tune of America, Fuck Yeah!
That's going to depend rather heavily on who wins the next election.
That's on the edge - but not out of - the realm of possibility.
I don't think the US is particularly good at doing 'fun weird'. We tend to take ourselves too seriously.
Eurovision would never happen in the US for instance.
I wouldn't say that. London 2012 was an amazing spectacle.
This looks like they spent about 20 Euros on the whole thing.
<Insert clip of the time Crusty the Clown replaced Itchy and Scratchy with an alternative cartoon>
Lots of people in this thread have never seen Les Miserables
I've never understood the spectacle of the opening ceremonies, especially as they got more and more elaborate. Not for me.
You’ll never make it as a dictator. You’ve got to love the spectacles to make it as a dictator. Or so I’m told.
Honestly, I'm mostly scare-watching after the attack on the train this morning. Thankfully, nothing bad has happened so far.
Ok, so now it's a revenge of the 90s technoparty.
And now it's a non-pg13 live action smurf (ok, it's supposed to be Dionisius)
And now it's Celine Dion singing imagine while riding a reefback on la Seine haha
And I forgot my X.
Yeah, the Smurf was not okay.
I'm pretty convinced at this point that whoever planned this pocketed most of the money.
Permanently Deleted
I'm only slightly kidding when I say:
The Olympics are happening this year? I feel like I'm usually really in the loop for these things.
If you are actually heading trouble remembering what years the summer Olympics are in here is something that can help. Summer Olympics, leap years, and us presidential elections are always the same years.
Except for the 2020 Olympics that were in 2021.
And the Winter Olympics used to be the same year as Summer Olympics until 1994.
It was a little boring before, now it feels more like Eurovision haha
Clearly thou ART not like the French.
Permanently Deleted
This is why all Olympics - whether ceremonies or matches - get recorded on the DVR, so we can skip past all the nonsense.
Yes, but it was pretty much entirely nonsense.
Why did the ghost just start doing parkour?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kvw2BPKjz0 new olympic sport lol it's french :D
This question is the most interesting thing I've ever heard about a sporting event.
No sport will ever be as exciting as a ghost doing parkour.
Yeah, what's going on with the parkour? I don't get any of this. It's totally unfocused apart from anything else.
Sounds like Arte. lol
Minions. MINIONS. Like from Despicable Me. I’m not really here, I took some sort of massive dose of shrooms accidentally, right?
They finally had attention there. I thought they were going to do a Costeau reference there haha. Now Macron is doing his proud poker face during the Marseillaise (thinking revolution and anarchism is nice, but don't bring down the state while I'm president, please)
I think the Minions were onboard Captain Nemo’s Nautilus
Minions was the best part. And the blue guy with the yellow beard.
I only did shrooms once. Then I learned they are grown in cow shit and almost puked after that.
that throuple was crazy tho 👀