The Olympic Opening Ceremony 2012: A Non-Sports Fan's Opinion

The Olympics come every four years to put the best of each country against the best of the other countries. For many, it is the highlight of top tier competitions. For me, it is the one chance to see sports on TV that are not called basketball, baseball, or football. It's a time when all of this is replaced with competitions that seem slightly more interesting. However, if you were to ask me right now, I cannot tell you who was competing for the American home team. To me, this is just another collection of games that will determine the best country. So what do I get out of this if I don't like sports? 

I get the opening ceremony. In truth, it is a borderline four hour event where we see athletes, fireworks, and all that jazz. People I have no connection to making a big spectacle over the five rings. Where is the fun in this? Like almost every Super Bowl halftime show, I dread a bad one, let alone one that goes on way too long just to leave me disappointed with my use of time.

However, the one positive aspect came when it was first announced that director Danny Boyle signed on as art director. Who is Danny Boyle? He is the Academy Award winning director of Slumdog Millionaire as well as the director behind two of my favorite films: 127 Hours and Trainspotting. He manages to bring a bit of gritty surrealism into a beautiful reality. He is authentic, and it is why I enjoy his work. It just made me more excited when he was announced because now I had investment. Now I wanted to see what he was going to pull off.

For the most part, I went in to the whole ceremony blind. I was hip to some of the music used in the ceremony, but that was as close to a spoiler as I received. When I finally got around to watching the ceremony last night along with millions of people, I was transported to a world I had been dreaming of on a smaller scale. A world that I assumed Boyle was going to build was very nature like with A.R. Rahman compositions (Underworld supposedly helped). Instead, I got almost all sides to what makes Danny Boyle a genius.

The show opened with traditional speeches before diving into the first choreographed routine. This was a segment which through loud drums and elaborate set designs (seen above) presented the history of England's industrial revolution. This went on for quite awhile, but what is more amazing is the head scratcher on how this all manages to fit into one arena. With pipes rising from the ground and thousands of extras performing an elaborate choreography, I just witnessed something I hadn't seen too often before. I saw theatricality on a grand scale.

True, there was also Kenneth Branagh, who read a passage from "the Tempest," but this was the teaser. This was the visual beginning of what was to come. It started off with a simple set piece and evolved to what you see above. Despite some unfortunate splicing between this experience and choirs from the United Kingdom singing, it built up to the historical side of England in a transfixing manner. 

I won't go into too much detail about the other events other than each segment was spectacular and almost made me fine with Danny Boyle escaping from movies for awhile. While I have yet to see his work in the "Frankenstein" stage production, I am doubting that he will ever top what we just saw on this night. Movies have the gift of being edited down to core elements. A live event that includes set pieces that take over 20 minutes and build to a grandiose rising of the five rings is phenomenal.

While many have gone on about the video involving the Queen and Daniel Craig as being hilarious, I don't get it. Maybe it is my lack of British parliament familiarity, but when Boyle stated afterwards that the Queen had a sense of humor, I didn't get that from the bit. There was no joke here (except that maybe the dogs were on acid based on the shaky camera technique). At most it saw the Queen was game for a pretentious segment that evolved into an authentic entrance: a body double jumping from an airplane with James Bond. That was the best part, but it wasn't funny. It just shows she has a side for adventure. However, I think that the community just didn't want to piss her off, so we called her funny. Whatever happened, though, she seemed rather bored.

I think that it had to do with how youthful the rest of the ceremony was. True, the opening seemed traditional in the sense of showing the evolution of Britain, but that was only step one for Boyle's big production. He also wanted to show culture and diversity. I am still amazed that this was all encapsulated underneath the same stage, but it only adds to the amazement that was the event.

The production also included a segment dedicated to the children's hospital. It also introduced one of my early irks that was later resolved. It involved the main theme from the Exorcist. It gave off the impression that these kids were possessed by the devil. For a good chunk of the opening, I was left a little confused on if some kids were going to spin heads. 

Luckily it evolved, and with an excerpt read by J.K. Rowling, it became a dueling contest between nurses and random book villains, including the bad guy from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the "Harry Potter" series, impressive built as a really tall puppet. Even with additional Mary Poppins thrown in, this excessive production felt long, but at the same time presented something sort of interesting. Great visuals with bad choreography (on purpose). 

However, I don't think any of this really holds a candle to upsetting the older community than the segment that followed, which introduced music and movies through the years. It started off with songs by the Rolling Stones and clips from City Lights, but what eventually came was an elaborate choreography to a mix of songs along with tracks by David Bowie, the Sex Pistols (including some rocking, bouncing egg heads with Mohawks), and Prodigy's "Firestarter."

It was at this moment that the Boyle that I knew from Trainspotting finally showed his face. For a good five minutes, he had managed to do what I figured to be impossible. He turned the Olympics into a rave from the 90's. With multicolored outfits and Prodigy blasting real loud, this wasn't the most inspired song choice, but it definitely brought a more punk vibe than the Sex Pistols portion. I was blown away so much by that moment alone, if just because he had the audacity to force the Queen to watch a rave of young people who previously were dressed like David Bowie.

It was also impressive, if just because he managed to slip in a reference to his breakout movie: Trainspotting.

It is true that somehow we managed to misconstrue the Sex Pistol's "God Save the Queen" during the opening credits to not feature "the fascist regime," but that didn't matter anymore. The cheeky bastard stuck in a clip of Trainspotting. I don't think it is the touchstone that Harry Potter or Mary Poppins is. I doubt even an eighth of the people in that room had any idea of what the movie was about. When they saw Ewan McGregor climbing out of a toilet, that must have been something. It's one thing to stick your own movie into the show, but another when you manage to slip in the movie about Scottish junkies along with an entire rave scene.

And yet, he topped it by having Dizzee Rascal perform. Now, I know that very few of you know who he is. Let me just clarify: he's a grime artist that sounds something like this:

Easily as shocking as putting Trainspotting in your Olympics show is having a grime artist perform live. In a room of eclectic athletes, celebrities, and tourists, you stuck Dizzee Rascal in your show. Bravo, Mr. Boyle. Your audacity for the night has been met.

This may be why the Queen was mad. At this point, I believed that Boyle had turned the event into a celebration of everything that the British people ever did. They even included a routine with Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean that parodied Chariots of Fire. For those who like his silent slapstick persona, it was pretty good. For Americans, it was just a wonder why the guy from Rat Race was getting this level of attention.

It was amusing for sure, even if it is questionable how much of the piano during the routine he actually played. It was more in the physicality, and it delivered for the most part. So far we haven't gotten any big surprises as far as British celebrities, but this is still looking to be a phenomenal night. 

The night also included a bizarre inclusion of the Arctic Monkeys. I find it odd, since I only liked their first album. However, they did do a stellar cover of the Beatles' "Come Together," which I felt actually outshone the Paul McCartney segment at the end. It included bikers dressed in bright lights with wings. One even flew up towards the end, and it only added to the spectacle, which included the stands being filled with lights that varied in color and presented just as fascinating of visuals as the stuff going on in the center stage.

The athletes were brought in and the ceremony continued in normal fashion. It was a nice touch to include the athletes of tomorrow that were about 16, running to light the flame. It was interesting because it included about six people that lit various pots. At the end, they joined together to make one large flame. It was rather beautiful. 

Not to be outdone, this was followed by a spectacular round of fireworks that lit up the entire town. While this happened, Pink Floyd played on the speakers, and created an ominous beauty that officially made this well worth my investment. I don't much care for fireworks, but when you have visuals like this:

There is little to keep me from feeling warm inside. Of course, the night ended in an odd fashion with Paul McCartney. It wasn't odd that he would play, but just his choice of songs. He started with "the End," which has struck me as an odd song to use, despite it's brevity. It is all in the title. The end. This is the beginning of the events. Terrible choice. However, the use of "Hey Jude" seemed obvious, but well worth it just to watch the audience sing along. I kind of wondered what it must have been like for those that didn't know the song. Did it actually work, or did few countries get the "nanananana" bit?

Overall, I must admit that for someone who wasn't a sports fan, I was rather impressed. In truth, this whole night was nothing more than a celebration of British culture through the years. Very little of it actually had to do with sports. Most of all, Danny Boyle had the audacity to include everything and not water much of it down. True, he botched certain songs for artistic merit, but he brought a spectacle that may lean more towards the younger crowd, but is definitely something to be awed. I don't think that I've seen anything quite on this scale ever before, and the fact that it was Boyle behind the gears only makes me all the more prouder to be a fan.

I got to admit, I enjoyed it also from a nerd standpoint. I really tried to nail all of the pop culture moments. However, there were few that just made me drop my jaw. Dizzee Rascal. Trainspotting. Prodigy's "Firestarter" are all among them. Even the artists, which weren't admittedly my favorites, just had that momentum, and I was proud that Boyle represented every possible demographic in his collages of culture. 

In the end, there were definitely some weak spots, but I don't feel like it would be right for focusing on them. They were more from the announcers who pushed agendas on the audience. It wasn't Boyle's fault. What he achieved was rather wonderful and authentic. At times it seemed a little full of itself, but it was all for the best, and if anything, makes me want to watch sports... or Trainspotting.

Great event. I love that it worked on a visual level as well as a audio level. Everything seemed in sync, except for the Queen.