The XXX Olympiad is officially underway after an eclectic Opening Ceremony directed by Trainspotting‘s Danny Boyle.
It began with footage of the Thames through London, and spanned to children’s choirs across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
Kenneth Branagh introduced us to the Industrial Revolution, as hundreds of workers built mines across England’s farms. Accompanied by drummers, they were followed by Suffragettes, metal workers, immigrants, and tributes to fallen soldiers. Five huge Olympic rings showered fire high above the arena.
Daniel Craig escorted The Queen (in her first ever acting role) in a helicopter from Buckingham Palace to the stadium. Mike Oldfield made a rare appearance as Tubular Bells accompanied a tribute to Great Ormond Street Hospital. J.K. Rowling introduced a ‘dream’ sequence as fantasy characters came to life: Cruella de Ville, Valdemort, Captain Hook and Mary Poppins.
The London Symphony Orchestra performed Chariots of Fire with a cheeky Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) on keyboards. Television, pop culture, suburbia and a British Saturday night came to life with kids, dancers, and fluro colours. A medley tribute to the music industry referenced The Who, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Mud, David Bowie, Queen, Sex Pistols, New Order, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Eurythmics, The Prodigy, Amy Winehouse and Muse.
The sequence concluded with an appearance by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the British inventor who created the world wide web (thanks Tim!).
After Abide with Me it was time for the athletes to enter the arena.
Australia’s outfits were understated this year in green and gold jackets with white pants. With Lauren Jackson carrying the flag there was clearly elation on the faces of the Aussies, and every athlete seemed to be snapping pics on their phone. When Great Britain entered the arena resplendent in white, the crowd went wild, showered in confetti (while Her Majesty appeared to be doing her nails).
Arctic Monkeys took to the stage as winged cyclists circled the stadium before the official proceedings began with Sebastian Coe and Jacques Rogge. Queen Elizabeth declared the games followed by the arrival of the Olympic flag and appearance by 70 year old Muhammed Ali.
The Olympic flame arrived via a boat across the Thames, headed by David Beckham.
The moment everyone had waited for, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron saw flame petals form the shape of a blazing flower in the middle of the stadium.
Fireworks lit up the sky as Sir Paul McCartney performed Hey Jude -and appeared to be out of sync with his click track. But the crowd sang along nonetheless, ending a spectacular, sometimes humorous and showbiz opening to the XXX Olympiad.
Welcome to London.
@johnjet.Your joking right?.The grade 3 weak nudge nudge look at me I’m a funny guy jokes as the teams wandered around the stadium wore thin by the time we got to Bulgaria.Can’t suffer McGuire but I would put up with him any day over those to stooges on the foxtel replay…
Saw a replay on Foxtel last night and it was better than 9′s attempt. We had Rove, Matt Shirvington and Tracy Holmes as commentators. No chatting through out and we saw all the athletes come into the stadium, with no cutting away to the Aussies. 9 should ask Foxtel to do the closing ceremony for them.
@David K, @The Moops – just checked the intro film again and it’s def “God Save the Queen”. Yes, Pretty Vacant is in the later music mashup in the stadium.
Check below at 1:55 -
wwos.ninemsn.com.au/london-olympics/video/catch-up?videoid=ccb30d29-9ea7-4f70-b92b-a9a4f2cf7779
@Sunny – Must be all of my 4 TVs and all of my neighbours’. The WIN/GEM picture quality in our area is very crappy. Clearly, it depends on the local transmitter, and the infamous MediaHub.
Didn’t see the Fijian on the replay. Then, didn’t see more than an hour of the Opening Ceremony in the replay as Nine chopped around 1.25hrs out to fit in all of their annoyingly repetitious comms & promos. Entrance of most countries was chopped. Key speech was interrupted mid-stream then chopped again.
The picture quality on WIN HD for the Olympics is brilliant. Those with problems must have poor reception or a crappy TV. On SD the picture quality is ordinary
A very ordinary opening ceremony. It was more like a Royal Command Performance. The only thing that’s stuck in my mind are those awful dancing industrialists in top hats. Those merry olde people who exploited the poor to make their fortunes.
With the exception of the segment with the Queen and James Bond and the part with Rowan Atkinson I didn’t think it was very good. I was disappointed they didn’t do more with the “Green and Pleasant Land” part and was very annoyed that they spent what seemed like forever marching anyone and everyone dressed as something to do with British History since the Industrial Revolution into the stadium simply so they could pull up the grass before marching off again. The different sections were also annoying: it seemed as if the Ceremony lacked a central cohesive theme to tie it al together and that disparate themes had been chosen to feature – how did the love story connect to children’s books, for example? The flaming Olympic rings and the cauldron were good, but it was certainly no Beijing or Sydney. Eddie was quite tolerable for once, I found.
@Secret Squirrel, Danny Boyle is quite well known for his left-wing views and his homage to the National Health Service was in keeping with that, as was his nod to trade unions, suffragettes movement, plight of workers in the Industrial Revolution, etc. I agree,it was very unorthodox, but I thought it worked brilliantly. I can’t imagine Medicare being showcased in such a way during the Sydney Opening Ceremony!!! The NHS is sacrosanct in the UK, they are rightly very proud of it.
@davidknox, yes, it was Pretty Vacant, not God Save The Queen.
I can understand that people might be frustrated that 9 continued to get shots of the Aussie athletes during the parade of nations. But for me personally, I have quite a few friends who are competing, so it was great to have more that one minute of footage to look for them (as well as on Hamish and Andy). And i mean, that is why most of us watch the games, to see our sporting stars and super stars like Phelps and LeBron.
Excellent! I love watching the opening ceremony!!! My only gripe, I was kind of disappointed we didn’t get to see All countries enter the stadium. No Japan, no Poland (hubby is Polish so we were looking out for them), and I think (but I could be wrong) no Russia?! While we had thrilling shots of Aussies standing around talking on their phones!
@Craig & Rod: Totally agree. I spotted it but wasn’t impressed. A blue police box at the end is a good idea!
The Fijian Flag Bearer was my favourite part.
Pretty sure it wasn’t God Save the Queen but Pretty Vacant both times….
Agree with Robert BA, the first half up to the joining of the rings was brilliant. After that there were some good bits amongst a bit of a mess. I didn’t get why GOSH was given so much focus (altho’ it looked good) and it would have made more sense to me to have the musical cameos in chrono order. I also liked that the Sex Pistol’s God Save the Queen was played right at the start as the helicopter approcahed the ceremony and that there was a nod to Pink Floyd’s flying pig.
I’m pretty sure Her Majesty didn’t actually ride in the ‘copter.
@deedeedragons – the Americans invented the internet (ARPANET). Berners-Lee invented HTTP, HTML, and the first web-browser, which allows the WWW to work on the internet.
Fantastic job by Boyle. I cannot believe I enjoyed an opening ceremony, theyre usually so dull. How great was Underworld doing the soundtrack? Listening to Rez and Always Loved a Film _almost_ made Eddie and co bareable. I do agree that it was one blue phone box short of perfection. Maybe the closing ceremony?!
I thought the first half of the opening ceremony was brilliant but for the end part it fell away.
Eddie everywhere ruined the whole opening ceremony for me with his dumb observations & excessive talking.
Channel 9 Please don’t bring him back for the closing ceremony he ruins the whole presentation.
@steven – Doc Who – seriously that was it? the show has been around for almost 50 years and that’s what we get?
Is anyone else experiencing extremely loud commercials on GEM?
HD quality here was woeful although that’s not surprising considering how bit starved HDTV is here on FTA in Australia. I went for the BBC broadcast, good HD quality, no ads, no Eddie.. Much more enjoyable and professional.
Loved it, the Poms hit it out of the park. Absolutely fabulous spectacle, so well conceived, technically brilliant, it ticked all the boxes. What I didn’t like was the coverage of the parade of athletes. Nine skipped over whole countries to concentrate on Australia. Enough already! We saw them when they came in, we didn’t need to see them after that. I was most disappointed with the coverage of that part of the ceremony.
Didn’t really like it, thought it was boring and thought Sydney’s was a lot better.
I loved it. As much as it pains me to say it, I think it was better than the Sydney opening ceremony.
On the subject of McGuire, when the Croatians came out he said there was “a big roar for Croatia as there are a lot of Croatians in Australia” Does he not know where these games are?
i was as well disappointed with the quality on GEM. a lot of pixelation going on. otherwise i loved the ceremony. it was great
We don’t have Eddie, but we’re stuck with Stefanovic!!
As for the opening ceremony, I was very underwhelmed…
Eddies commentary wasnt as annoying as I thought it would be and the ceremony was alright.However,I did think that we should have been able, to see all the countries walking into the stadium.Australia is a multicultural country and the Olympics is about many nations coming together.It was only fair we got to see them all equally,instead of skipping over some of them.
@ jezza Of course there is going to be an emphasis on Australian athletes, but it should not be at the expense of other nations, especially for a multinational sporting event such as the Olympics. Don’t forget there’s a lot people with overseas roots in this country, how are they supposed to cheer when the network doesn’t give them an opportunity to do so?
22 million in Aus and Eddie McGuire and Andrew Gaze is the best we could do for commentary ? would’ve preferred an elder quieter more knowledgeable statesman like Les Murray.
Stop whinging, the opening ceremony was awesome. Eddie did not spoil it too much, he provided a narrative and kept fairly quiet. There is always gonna be pictures/shots of aussie athletes on aussie tv durr c’mon. The whole show was just great….no complaints so far…
The Opening Ceremony didn’t have the wow factor for me. It was good, but not memorable.
“And here’s the green and gold of Australia”. Actually, Eddie, they are wearing green and white.
The “HD” quality on WIN/GEM is terrible. Switched to WIN SD for a better picture this afternoon.
To those complaining that too much footage focused on Team Australia, during the parade of nations – it’s no different here in the US. Here, they save all their ad breaks for the parade, and then skip entire nations (using quick “ealier we had xxxxx come out”). It’s nearly 200 countries of ‘filler’ until the USA arrive. After which, they focus on them with occasional cutaways to other succeeding nations.
They did at least give plenty of time for Great Britain. Mostly because US audiences are fascinated with all things English.
@Craig: There *was* a reference to Doctor Who – but blink and you missed it. In the “Frankie & June Thank Tim” segment, while Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was playing. Just after the line “Just gotta right out of here” you can hear the TARDIS taking off! I just played it twice to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. It’s faint, but it’s there.
Olympics. Time to go through the DVD Library…yawn
@Craig I’m sure I heard the TARDIS take off sound during Bohemian Rhapsody.
Thank god we don’t have Eddie Everywhere forced down our throats every damn day!
Every time he opened his gob he made it sound like we were watching a football match!
Can’t he ever relax for gods sake!
Great so I paid for the Foxtel coverage only to get Eddie
FYI while I agree some of the commentary is boring it is need to explain what is happening. Apparently the NBC commentators were worse.
You won’t hear him on Nine again until marathon and Closing. Now he does Foxtel.
Why oh why did Channel Nine send Eddie Everywhere???? His constant stating the obvious and running commentary completely ruined the opening ceremony. I don’t understand why they couldn’t just use the UK feed – we don’t need to listen to that bore!!!!!
Mac repeated at 2pm.
All the pop culture and no Doctor Who which will be 50 years old soon? Kinda disappointed David Tennant didn’t light the torch like Doctor Who did in Season 2
Is it just me of does XXX Olympiad sound kinda dirty
Nine’s coverage of the “parade of nations” was pretty disrespectful. Skipping whole countries such as Austria and Japan for shots of Aussie athletes texting and Tweeting sure made for compelling television!
Dammit – forgot it was on! And my fave band (New Order) got included in the medley? Gold!
WTF was with Eddie McGuire?? sounded like a tosser the whole ceremony
thanks Channel 9
Malta walked in and the camera was on a a couple of Australain athletes sitting down !!!
very disappointed
Ooh! The Americans i know won’t like that!
Every now & then they tell me they invented the world wide web.