Anyone else watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies?

DS and I are FaceTiming while we watch the ceremony. (He’s in Florida atm). Can I just say that the coverage between there, and here with the BBC, are quite different. 😁

Where/how does the balloon stop?

I’m annoyed. If I knew they were airing it live I would have watched vs only seeing the very end of it. I have my DVR set to record but would have watched it live. Google failed me.

If I was an athlete in the stadium, I think I would have been a bit disappointed to not see the flame being lit. I love when the athletes all cheer as the flame is being lit in past Olympics. And I missed not seeing the athletes physically walking into the stadium. I don't know, this was all so different.

Celine Dion sounded great!

I didn't see the first couple of hours, so tonight I'll just watch up until the parade of athletes start.

It should just stay there. It’s the same manufacturer, I think as the one at Disney Springs at WDW and at Disneyland Paris.

  Couldn’t have said it better. My goodness what a show. 

  It went thru my mind that whatever part of the planning stage Los Angeles is in, those plans should be ripped up and get the magic of Hollywood on the case. That’s going to be hard to get near much less surpass

Hopefully the rain has broken the heat wave!

I was able to see up to Greece on their boat then I was away until the last hour or so, so I missed much of it but of the bits I caught:

The light show was fabulous.

Celine was amazing - I’m not particularly a fan but having watched the documentary I Am Celine Dion, I am so impressed by her attitude to life and delighted she was able to perform like that.

There was far too much phaffing around with the flame to get it to the cauldron.

I thought it was awesome! Loved that it wasn’t just in a stadium, but throughout the entire city. What a wonderful celebration of sports, music, art, diversity, love. I really enjoyed it.

From the comments above, it sounds like the opening ceremony was a good television show but not a good show if you were in the stadium. If I had tickets to the opening ceremony, I would want to actually see the acts, the dancing, the singing, the athletes marching in, and the lighting of the caldron. I wouldn’t want to have to see it all on big screens. The people in the stadium can’t even see the caldron. I still need to watch the first half tonight, so I might change my feelings about the opening. 😄

I’m watching the nbc prime time coverage, and I think it sucks!! So it’s really hard to appreciate the whole show and ceremonies. We don’t get to know who the flag bearers are for each country, or even the athletes. It feels disjointed. And the lack of really good explanations on what is going on, besides the scripted host comments. Blech

This is really spectacular. Paris is putting on quite the show. Well done.

These are the choices? OMG, so much fake excitement. How DO they do it? And why don't they know more about the countries? Did they fire all the PAs who do the actual research?

I love some things, starting with the logo featuring the flame and the iconic Marianne. The city looks so beautiful. The Marseillaise was breathtaking. Imagine with the burning piano was pretty cool. (Between the fire and the rain, there was some serious grand piano abuse going on.) The horse and rider were spectacular and so was the procession of flags. The light show, wow! I'm not a big fan but Celine Dion singing Edith Piaf's L'Hymne A L'Amour had me in tears. Even without her health problems, the performance was masterful. The last hour had the dignity that the rest of the show lacked.

Some fails: The can-can was a mess. Come on, Paris, it's your iconic dance. You don't have enough people who can do it in unison? I've seen better Can-Cans at the Diamond Horseshoe Revue. I love Gaga, but I was disappointed in her number, maybe it was the choice of a very repetitive song. Didn't like the shameless plugs for Wicked and Minions. Too much fussing about to get the flame to the cauldron. At some point, not just every French athlete, but every athlete who's won anything in France will have carried the torch. Just light the thing already, OK? When they finally lit it, all I could think of was Hindenberg. The boat thing seemed like a good idea, except when you see the athletes as just a cluster of people waving flags. I'm a trans advocate, but mocking the Last Supper was not cool.

All in all, a very memorable Opening Ceremony.