London Olympics, Summer Games 2012

[C.A.]

Hmmm it was great to hear the TARDIS while Bohemian Rapshody is playing and showing people wearing 3D glasses, but still not enough Doctor.

[MrTerrorist]

They got James Bond. No contest.

[C.A.]

I heard people suggesting that it would have been perfect if Bond brought the Queen there, the Doctor should take the Queen away with the TARDIS.

[Endless Soul]

I managed to watch part of it. I thought the forging of the rings was pretty cool. The look of hot iron, sparks flying, and clouds of smoke were just right. The Bond/Queen appearance was a nice touch too, although I did have to look past the daylight/nighttime/daylight continuity gaffes.

Endless "Olympiad" Soul

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by RRW

the queen face is good photoshop material

Oh, that is so freakin' rich. Seriously, the Queen was not amused the whole time.

[Tom Bombadil]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

So yes, though London's opening is very much more low-key, and though I do agree that many parts of it felt forced and awkwardly executed, I felt that the London ceremony had something Beijing's did not: a sense of Olympic sporting tradition dating back to at least 1948 (the last time the Olympics were in London), if not 1908. (I especially loved the symbolism of London's Olympic cauldron.)

Beijing, in comparison, was the mighty Red show-off, the arrogant new-kid-in-the-block keen to show who's boss.

I mentioned earlier that I was laughing at all the tsukkomi's on Chinese forums. One of the type is "next morning, people will make such and such arguments for the London opening ceremony". Here it is, as predicted.

[tomtkp]

Originally Posted by RRW

the queen face is good photoshop material

Yeah, I agree. The Queen did not look particularly happy at all. *no offense to Her Majesty*

Watched the opening ceremony early in the morning. It was a good performance but not as "spectacular" as the Beijing 2008 OC was trying to show.

There were a few segments I liked in this opening ceremony;
- Industrial Revolution part (it really gave me a sense of nostalgia)
- James Bond / the Queen part (At one time I really thought that the Queen parachuted from the helicopter for real but when I saw the Queen appearing from the stand, I was like , maybe I dreamt too much.)
- Mr. Bean part (it was hillarious seeing him pressing one key of the piano all the time)
- Olympic cauldron (while I thought it was nothing special, but honestly it surprised me at the end)
- Oh, and Sir Paul's "Hey Jude" as well. I like this song for a long while.

Meanwhile, I dislike the youth pop culture part. When the text messages appeared on the TV screen, I was like WTF? What were they trying to convey to us? Love culture? This is Olympics, right?

However, it was great when the creator of World Wide Web, Sir Berners Lee appeared. I hold a sense of respect to him really.

[Random32]

The people making the London opening ceremony thought too much. Sure there is a lot about Olympic tradition, and small things about British pop culture, but it lacked the entertainment, excitement, and universal awesomeness value of Beijing's.

There were some good moments, but I was thinking "Please show me something awesome to make the all nighter I'm pulling to watch it." Ended waiting for Thailand, then decided that it wasn't too late to get a few hours of sleep.

Also, I heard the NBC stream was racist or something. Any comments on this? What exactly was said?

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by Random32

but it lacked the entertainment, excitement, and universal awesomeness value of Beijing's.

I'll just say the above statement contradicts everything I feel about the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony.

[RRW]

Originally Posted by Random32

Also, I heard the NBC stream was racist or something. Any comments on this? What exactly was said?

not really. they just cut several part for commercial like 7/7 section

[Blaat]

Spoiler for image:

[Haak]

It's funny. Throughout the entire ceremony, the only think i could think of was that it would've been so much more enjoyable if were animated by KyoAni.

Anyone else think that or has anime officially ruined my life?

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

I mentioned earlier that I was laughing at all the tsukkomi's on Chinese forums. One of the type is "next morning, people will make such and such arguments for the London opening ceremony". Here it is, as predicted.

Heh. Well, here's the surprise: I did in fact enjoy the jingoism (check out my flurry of posts four years ago ), but it was a different time, with very different priorities. Things do change very fast indeed.

[C.A.]

Originally Posted by Haak

It's funny. Throughout the entire ceremony, the only think i could think of was that it would've been so much more enjoyable if were animated by KyoAni.

Anyone else think that or has anime officially ruined my life?

Its not ruined, but its always better to have a broader perspective of media.

British comedy like Mr Bean would not work if its anime.

Talking about comedy, where is Monty Python? Did I miss it or what? Or is it because they've always made fun of the Olympic games so they were not invited?

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

As for the comparisons between Beijing and London's opening, I strongly disagree about the "universal", "artistic" appeal of Beijing's show in 2008. Maybe that's how it would appear to some Westerners but, to most of us in this region, it was an out-and-out attempt to shock and awe, to show the world how mighty China had become. Spectacular Beijing's opening may have been, but it was nothing short of a brash show of capitalist might, deeply ironic given the supposed ideology of China's ruling party.

I disagree, while that can be definitely said of most of what the CCP pays for, besides the sheer scale of it, it did not seem as much a "brash show of capitalist might". In fact, I think Zhang Yimou's efforts might have been more subtle then most people (including the CCP) realized.

I read an interesting comment post on Roger Eberts Blog, by Tony Zhou who explained it better then me:

Spoiler for Tony Zhou's post:

As background, I should say that I'm a Chinese-Canadian-American, I've grown up 19 years in North America, and I've lived/worked for the past two years in China.

I apologize in advance for the length of this comment, but it requires a long set-up. I have split it into two parts.

One of the things any country has to do is create a "story" for itself. This isn't just "history," but has to do with how a country sees itself, and how it generates nationalism among its people. It also paves the way for the future, setting a template for action.

To me, this whole Olympics thing is the clearest way to see the difference between two huge narratives that have not collided in a long time, and they go something like this:

The American narrative is that Red China is a Communist nation. The three most potent examples are Mao, the Cultural Revolution, and Tiananmen Square. In this story, a huge number of Chinese lived in poverty and under repression from the central government, which was a shadowy organization that controlled everything, and often had disastrous economic policies. Moreover, it was a shadowy government that liked to keep its trash hidden: Falun Gong, Tibet, missiles pointed at Taiwan, etc.

The American narrative focuses on the powers of China's leaders, claiming that they have enormous control over the country's people. The great irony is that it is impossibly hard to control Chinese people with laws; Chinese culture has about 600 laws, of which most people selectively follow 12. There are only a few key forces in Chinese culture (the really big ones are "face" and "guanxi" and perhaps "filial piety") and understanding these is the key to understanding the country, not "Communism" nor any other political ideology.

Unfortunately, mainland Chinese films compound the problem. Few present any sort of view of modern life, partially because the government likes to focus on history, partially because none receive distribution outside China, and partially because artists cannot possibly plug up all the holes in their audience's understanding of a nation. (Though I will always remember being ten years old and watching Zhang Yimou's "To Live" with my parents, who gave the best review I've ever heard: "It was exactly like that.")

The Chinese narrative starts at an earlier date in history. It focuses primarily on the "Century of Humiliation," which begins with the First Opium War up to the present. Here, the emphasis is on the destruction unleashed upon the country when foreigners were allowed to land and unload drugs. Concessions were made in coastal cities, foreigners took autonomous control of areas, palaces were looted or burned to the ground. The culmination is Japan's invasion during WWII, which is why the "Rape of Nanking" is so symbolic. It's not merely one event, but the sum of an entire century of "rape" in Chinese eyes. That's why historical accounts vary in the numbers - some people say 100,000 died while others say 300,000 - but the numbers barely matter, it's the feeling that the entire country was raped, repeatedly, by everyone.

This is why Mao received such a mandate in 1949. It wasn't that he was pro-Communism but that he kicked out all the foreigners. Chinese people value their privacy and like being "closed-off." I mean, our most famous national monument is the biggest fence in history, followed by a walled "forbidden" city. It doesn't take a genius to notice the thematic link. At the same time, though, there is an arrogance within Chinese culture that hasn't been addressed; it comes from being the world's longest continuous civilization (apart from Mesopotamia) and feeling that your culture is better than everyone else's, and that everybody copied you (see: the average Chinese person's opinion of Korean or Japanese culture) or looted you (see: Century of Humiliation).

Neither the American nor the Chinese narrative resembles any sort of reality I currently live in. And I've reached a point where I'm incredibly annoyed with people who only espouse one side, without considering... well, everything else. When given a chance to vent, most people will stick to the simple narrative their country has given them, and this infuriates me.

And that’s why the high point of the Olympics is what Zhang Yimou did with the opening ceremony. Six years ago, when he made "Hero," some critics accused him of selling out to the government, but I don't think those people watched the film with their eyes open. To this day, I consider it the most subversive film in modern Chinese history, because Zhang took all the money and he made something far more subtle and nuanced than the average historical epic. In fact, he made the anti-historical epic.

I remember most people focusing on Hero’s beauty and completely missing its structure. It was not a nationalistic story, but a story about nationalistic stories. The entire film is two men talking; each man tells a story which the other man refutes, but the stories are a distraction from the motives of the storyteller. The film was about using “stories” as deception, and the film itself was a deception. The Chinese government had to approve the screenplay, which of course is littered with ponderous lines and those prologue/epilogue text boxes that “explain what happens.” Government censors thought they were watching a film that approved the actions of the King of Qin (and implicitly, the current leadership). The film, like most historical epics, was supposed to give the Chinese audience a better grasp of their national narrative.

Instead, Zhang made a film that did the exact opposite. Instead of certainty, he gave ambiguity – we never really discover which story is true. Moreover, the images reveal a different theme: each story has a different color, because each story is “tinted” by the motives of the storyteller. None of the battles matter; in fact, at one point, Jet Li and Donnie Yen imagine a fight in their minds. The real battle is between Nameless and the King, who battle stories. At the end of the film, the protagonist chooses NOT to fight. He dies in a hail of arrows (a callback to the attack on the school) and we never see his dead body, only the negative space he leaves on the wall. For Zhang, the point was to deconstruct nationalistic stories, looking at the gaps and poking holes in the walls.

So now, six years later, he’s at it again. Except he’s gone much further. For the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, Zhang was told to focus especially on China’s history, its art, and its children, leaving out its dark Mao years (I received this information from a friend of mine whose family is well-linked with mid-level Politburo members).

But the crazy thing is that the Opening Ceremony actually has a narrative, which I call “The Story of a Scroll.” It begins with a short film depicting the creation of paper (considered one of China’s four great inventions), which is rolled up as a scroll. That scroll unfurls in the middle of the arena. From then on, almost everything takes place on that scroll: dancers paint it, children draw on it, everybody walks on it. The funny thing is that you can actually tell which parts were Zhang’s idea and which parts came from the government. The government loves anything simplistic and cute, and they run a similar show every year (the CCTV Spring Festival Extravaganza), so their list of contributions includes: the minority children holding the flag, all of the songs and their irritating singers, the soldiers marching in lockstep, the kids with the umbrellas, the insipid slogan (One World, One Dream) which is actually mistranslated (it should be Same World, Same Dream).

Having said that, the Zhang parts are fantastic. As part of the “Story of a Scroll,” he sets up lots of symmetries. Just one example: the Olympic rings are introduced by acrobats hanging from wires. After that, we see puppetmasters playing with puppets, who are also hanging from wires. Later on, similar acrobats (without wires) work together to form the shape of the Bird’s Nest. Then a huge globe comes out of the center, and there are wired acrobats running around the world. And, at last, there is Li Ning (a former gymnast) who is raised high and literally made a bird as he runs along the top of the Bird’s Nest. Across these five moments, Zhang paints a picture about how the people make the Olympics, which is the world, which is the Bird’s Nest, which has birds, who are people suspended by wires, held by other people, who make the Olympics, which is the world… and so on.

There are many other symmetries like this that are too numerous to count (and even require familiarity with one of China’s canonical novels). But ultimately, all of them become conflated with that scroll image. That scroll is laid out on the floor, and everybody walks on it. In the grand finale, Li Ning flies across the top of the Bird’s Nest, which is now a digital scroll. And if you look closely at the giant torch atop the building, it is actually (ha!) a scroll that has been rolled up at an angle. (And if you need any more proof, watch the Closing Ceremony where the British reps walk up the airplane ramp and stare at the torch. What does the guy pull out of his bag?)

So the Opening Ceremony is really not just a spectacle, but a narrative. It is a narrative about people – how people control other people like puppets, how people work together to create an image greater than the people, how some people focus on images and then realize the people behind them (remember those “digital” cubes you were surprised by, Roger?), how people use discipline and art to attain spirituality (there is a woman doing tai chi who becomes water, which becomes a ring of kung fu fighters), and how people represent things that are abstract (for instance, each flag carrier represents his country).

And ultimately, all of these things are written down on that scroll – which is created, unfurled, colored, stepped on, raised, curled into a torch, and then passed on to the next person – a perfect metaphor for history and art and hope for the future.

Honestly, this is the only time in recent memory where I have seen a Chinese artist attempt to re-write the Chinese narrative, not for party leaders but towards something better. The old story (focusing on the century of humiliation) is no longer relevant. This new one by Zhang Yimou just might be.

So that shall be my fondest memory of these Olympics. Two old narratives were proven outdated. And a new one started to take hold. Hopefully it’ll stick.

Bravo Zhang Yimou.

I think Zhang Yimou deserves a bit more credit.

[Tom Bombadil]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Heh. Well, here's the surprise: I did in fact enjoy the jingoism (check out my flurry of posts four years ago ), but it was a different time, with very different priorities. Things do change very fast indeed.

Lol, here is a remark by a Chinese netizen (but you have to be familiar with the Chinese media/culture to get it).

Spoiler for Chinese Text:

如果北京奥运会开幕式以改革开放以来城市建设作为开幕，把铁血丹心
、渴望、春天的故事、纤夫的爱等脍炙人口歌曲都播放一遍，配上春节晚会上那个舞蹈
。再演出个北京爱情故事的舞台剧。然后以在大荧幕插播葫芦娃和我爱我家3D片段作为
过场动画。我看大家不把北京奥组委爆出翔来.

Anyway, experience shows such discussions as we are having now never lead anywhere. It just consists of people choosing sides and exchange words. But I still find it funny that you see "Olympics tradition" in the Industrial Revolution (impressive) and National Health Service (boring), but jingoism in the 2008 ceremony. Maybe there is objectivity for this in the lens through which you view the world, but I don't see it through mine.

[demonix]

Originally Posted by JagdPanther

I like how they had a moment of silence, so to speak, for World War I, but was there anything for World War II? If there was, I either missed it or it hasn't been shown on the US tape-delay yet.

The moment of silence wasn't just for the first world war, it was to remember the lives lost in all wars (if I've remembered what was said correctly)

I'm guessing that if the US tape delay broadcast had it's own commentary, they didn't mention that (the BBC commentary team did say what was going to happen just before the silence happened).

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

But I still find it funny that you see "Olympics tradition" in the Industrial Revolution (impressive) and National Health Service (boring), but jingoism in the 2008 ceremony. Maybe there is objectivity for this in the lens through which you view the world, but I don't see it through mine.

And I find it funny that you focus on those parts you found propagandist, and sidelined the symbolism of the cauldron, the passing of the torch to a new generation rather than to national icons, and the historical significance of London being the Olympic host for the third time.

Also funny that you've missed how, amid all the pomp and splendour, the Brits just couldn't resist taking the mickey at themselves (the Bond and Bean show). This is a people that has always been deeply cynical about authority and of anyone who thinks too highly of himself. Yes, it's true that London has pulled out all the stops to wow the world, but it's also true that Britons know a jackass when they see one.

It's just that you might not realise when they call you one.

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I think Zhang Yimou deserves a bit more credit.

All that focus on shaping the historical narrative, yet what was the Industrial Revolution segment all about again?

Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil

Anyway, experience shows such discussions as we are having now never lead anywhere. It just consists of people choosing sides and exchange words.

Aye, on that I can readily agree.

On with the Games. They're far less contentious.

[Tom Bombadil]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Also funny that you've missed how, amid all the pomp and splendour, the Brits just couldn't resist taking the mickey at themselves (the Bond and Bean show). This is a people that has always been deeply cynical about authority and of anyone who thinks too highly of himself. Yes, it's true that London has pulled out all the stops to wow the world, but it's also true that Britons know a jackass when they see one.

It's just that you might not realise when they call you one.

Another type of argument that was prophetized: "you can't appreciate the show (as well as other people do) because you don't understand the British culture. "

[Endless Soul]

Originally Posted by RRW

the queen face is good photoshop material

She's probably thinking of the fun things she used to do, but can't anymore.

Images

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