★★★★★ 0/5

Welcome to London

London had David Beckham, James Bond, JK Rowling, Mr. Bean and a blazing flower cauldron -the XXX Olympiad has begun.

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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.

45 Responses

  1. @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…

  2. 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.

  3. @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

  4. @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.

  5. 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

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. @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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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!

  13. 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.

  14. 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?!

  15. 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.

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