My rankings:
1. Beijing (BY A MILE) obviously
...
...
2. Athens <33333
3. Sydney <333
4. London
Same. This was super disappointing. I HATE to admit it but I can't kid myself. Even Vancouver's opening ceremony was better.
shareagree london had the worst opening ceremony i can remember!!
shareBeijing
London
Sydney
Athens
london had the worst opening ceremony i can remember!!
UTAH was EVEN WORSE ...
where ROMNEY ...
the MORMON currently RUNNING for office of US PRESIDENT ...
used the HISTORY of HIS RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND ...
full of wagon trains ...
POLYGAMY ...
and PRARIE DRESSES ...
as a THEME for the OPENING CEREMONIES.
I RANK the LONDON CEREMONY as being UNREALISTIC.
HERE'S WHY:
Does Boyle really think that humans pulling on cranks to produce smoke was what the Industrial Revolution was all about? Sad and embarassing, really.
Think of what could have been accomplished using the same actors, children included, in every era...you could have had the early agrarian era with the kids huddled in hovels, or working the farms with Mom and Dad...that melds into the Industrial Revolution, everyone throws off their outer costume to reveal a costume underneath that is dirtier, grimier, and while the parents and pretending to pull giant cranks, the kids are off to work in the coal mines...that slides into the era of kids sleeping in beds entertained by Peter Pan and the National Health System, all praise Socialism and jump up and down on the beds because working for the common good is fun...and then, the Modern Era, where the kids peel down to their modern clothing, they get to use modern electronics, parents are stuck in the house unemployed while the kids dance at raves and enjoy casual sex.
That would have given you a pretty nice arc of Britain and a semi-cohesive story line.
BRAVO - agoac !!!
WELL PUT !!!
And in addition to the KIDS who WORKED in COAL MINES ...
let's also NOT FORGET the one's who WERE CHIMNEY SWEEPS ...
a situation that was also WHITE WASHED OVER by DISNEY with THE MARY POPPINS CHARACTER ...
sitting there WATCHING GROWN UP MEN DANCING ...
when it was MOSTLY KIDS who'd done ALL THE WORK CLEANING CHIMNEY'S ...
KIDS who also got PLACED INTO COFFINS ...
due to the BLACK LUNG disease that KILLS THEM ...
before they could ever become ADULTS ...
ADULTS who would also NEVER have been able to DANCE ...
due to the way they were INFESTED with their BLACK LUNG condition ...
from CLEANING THE CHIMNEY???
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2010/09/a_perfect_discomfit.html
"Blake's poetry has the unpleasantness of great poetry," says T.S. Eliot (who has a way of parodying himself even while making wise observations). The truth in Eliot's remark, for me, has to do not simply with Blake's indictment of conventional churches, governments, artists but with his general, metaphysical defiance toward customary ways of understanding the universe.
It is in the nature of William Blake's genius to make such questions not just literary but moral.
"The Chimney Sweeper," from Songs of Innocence
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!' "
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved:
so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."
And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
.............................................—William Blake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC4Dq2scQDI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdCJivaztMw&feature=related
Songs of Experience
The Chimney-Sweeper
by William Blake
(1757-1827)
A little black thing among the snow,
Crying! 'weep! weep!' in notes of woe!
'Where are thy father and mother? Say!' -
'They are both gone up to the church to pray.
'Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
'And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and His priest and king,
Who made up a heaven of our misery.'
You'll be aware then that opening ceremonies tend to gloss over the darker parts of the host nations past. The Sydney Olympics didn't feature any natives getting slaughtered and the Beijing Olympics didn't featured didn't feature any human rights violations.
share^Agree with HelveticaFont!
EVERY opening ceremony only focuses on the GOOD of the country.
Every country has pieces of their past they aren't proud of!
That's not why i hated the london olympics... i just felt it was boring, corny, and a bit like an bad mtv episode.