It's France. If it weren't some weird avant-garde art statement, people would probably be disappointed.
It's just so badly done.
Oh Christ, they're doing some bad synth can-can thing now.
So you are saying it was more of a can't can't?
The can-can was surprisingly poorly synchronized. The later segments were much better performed.
The can-can part was mercifully quick too.
I've re-watched that Gojira performance like 10 times. The beheaded Marie Antionettes were <chef's kiss>.
I'm getting old and have watched a lot of opening ceremonies with all of this art that they have to explain the meaning to you.
In front of an in-person audience of hundreds of world leaders and live to the entire world, the French chose to depict their final monarch that they deposed and beheaded while playing death metal and opera. That's one of the most badass things I've ever seen. And the announcers didn't have to explain to you how badass it was.
The decapitated Mary Antoinettes singing operatic methal from a palace's windows were cool.
That wasn't just cool, it was badass! You can rewatch it here: https://youtu.be/cJowjYixfEs
If this is legit a thing that happened I'm kinda mad I missed it.
It was Gojira, a rather famous french metal band, with Marina Viotti, an also famous franco-swiss opera singer.
Ok, now with Celine Dion performing Edith Piaf on the Tour Eiffel I'm getting the peak France feeling I got for peak UK in London 2012, lol
Yep agree.
By far the best part. Celine was astounding and that balloon thingy is outrageously original. The light show too.
There was a metric shitload of what the actual hell going on in the run up to it. Not inherently bad in the main - but just not very well put together. Disjointed, way too drawn out, incoherent.
Thank goodness they had a decent ending.
Who was Parkour Bansky? Does anyone know? Was a tad worried they were going to skitter off a wet roof on live TV.
Edit: Seen Gojira on replay. Excellent.
The second half has been much better than the first. The light show on the tower has been great.
I always find it strange when host nations choose performers from the non-host nation. Like why is Gaga there? She’s not French.
Celine Dion will be there too apparently. I guess she's from a Francophone part of Canada at least?
I wonder how many celebrated French singers are upset that she opened the performance while mangling the French language? Like, I don’t think she did terrible, but was also clearly not a native speaker
I wonder how many celebrated French singers are upset that she opened the performance while mangling the French language?
The answer is probably none. The Olympics is a celebration of multiculturalism not just the culture of the hosts. If anything, it speaks about the impact of colonialism and historical french cultural hegemony during the XIX century.
Oh, and she does speak french, with an accent, but she does speak it.
Honestly the people who care about this sort of thing are way more upset that a black gasp woman gasp sang rap gasp for the opening ceremony. I'm talking about aya Nakamura.
Gaga, ooh-la-la?
Eh, you know what? I like it. Go weird
It's weird, but not in a good way. Not for me. It's just so completely disconnected. There's nothing that unifies it at all. It's just random weird stuff. Lady Gaga does an old fashioned Hollywood number, sure. There's a weird Assassin's Creed faceless person doing parkour with the torch, whatever. Headless Mary Antoinette sings a song. I guess. Robot horse for five minutes... okay... get on with it.
A lady sings Imagine and I hope she doesn't burn to death because of the GIANT FIRE in the piano behind her? WHAT THE FUCK AM I WATCHING?
...the Aristocrats :D
Welcome to the Olympics this happens every time. Mark my words when the Olympics come to the state we are going to do our damndest to out weird France.
It'll just be 500 people firing tracer filled machine guns into the air, fireworks being launched off the deck of an aircraft carrier, and a finale centered on an ICBM being detonated offshore to the tune of America, Fuck Yeah!
That's going to depend rather heavily on who wins the next election.
I wouldn't say that. London 2012 was an amazing spectacle.
This looks like they spent about 20 Euros on the whole thing.
The horse rider coming down the seine was quite spooky. I'm surprised there hasn't been any nudity
It was at first. After five minutes, it had lost anything that made it impressive to me.
The best part so far for me has been the montages of previous Olympics. Those were terrific.
Right now, I'm feeling sorry for a lady who has to stand there and hold an umbrella over the guy speaking.
Why did the ghost just start doing parkour?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kvw2BPKjz0 new olympic sport lol it's french :D
This question is the most interesting thing I've ever heard about a sporting event.
No sport could ever be as exciting as a ghost doing parkour.
I've never understood the spectacle of the opening ceremonies, especially as they got more and more elaborate. Not for me.
Honestly, I'm mostly scare-watching after the attack on the train this morning. Thankfully, nothing bad has happened so far.
You’ll never make it as a dictator. You’ve got to love the spectacles to make it as a dictator. Or so I’m told.
I'm only slightly kidding when I say:
The Olympics are happening this year? I feel like I'm usually really in the loop for these things.
Lots of people in this thread have never seen Les Miserables
Minions. MINIONS. Like from Despicable Me. I’m not really here, I took some sort of massive dose of shrooms accidentally, right?
They finally had attention there. I thought they were going to do a Costeau reference there haha. Now Macron is doing his proud poker face during the Marseillaise (thinking revolution and anarchism is nice, but don't bring down the state while I'm president, please)
I think the Minions were onboard Captain Nemo’s Nautilus
Ok, so now it's a revenge of the 90s technoparty.
And now it's a non-pg13 live action smurf (ok, it's supposed to be Dionisius)
And now it's Celine Dion singing imagine while riding a reefback on la Seine haha
And I forgot my X.
Yeah, the Smurf was not okay.
I'm pretty convinced at this point that whoever planned this pocketed most of the money.
It got much better. The horse running down the river gave me chills. I was in Paris a couple of months ago, and this has become quite a feat. The rain made it even more surreal.
It was a little boring before, now it feels more like Eurovision haha
Celine Dion just did the performance of my lifetime. Everyone can go home now!
Television