London Opening Ceremonies

At best the London Olympics opening ceremonies were underwhelming, and that’s an understatement. At worst, they were sort of boring and inconsequential. Most reviewers said they thought it was a great opening, certainly not as spectacular as the opening in Beijing, but a credit to Danny Boyle, who put it all together. I kept wondering how the people in the stadium would have reacted to the chaos below. If they didn’t have large tv screens to watch, they’d have been lost. The segment with all the nurses and beds, the children dreaming about their favorite literary heroes, was jumbled and hard to follow. I love the theme from Chariots of Fire, but I hated what the opening did with it, a mockery of the Olympians’ run on the beach with comic actor Rowan Atkinson doing the mocking. Then there was that strange musical love story with multicolored dancers going crazy to the music of assorted British rock groups, with the girl and boy sort of wandering around among the dancing and fireworks. How would the stadium viewers have made any sense of it? The people of Great Britain would hate what I’ve just said about their opening ceremonies, but so be it. I wasn’t impressed.