2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony

Don't forget to watch it tonight on 7:30 at NBC!

From what I hear, it was amazing.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/2008_olympics_opening_ceremony.html

 

I hope some of you are watching this, it's amazing in HD.

 

I was at the 76 Olympics in Montréal & saw Nadia Comaneci get that perfect 10.0. Sweet!
How can I say this: The Olympics is a great opportunity for the world to go "where no man has gone before" & celebrate athletic excellence beyond boundaries. Walking around the city meeting people from all over the world up for this event was truly an experience to be treasured.

 

Couldn't stop being impressed. In the back of my mind I was thinking China's new money and how much is at stake for the USA in this new financial world. And of course a huge amount of pride for our athletes to win gold.

 

watching it now

The Chinese put on an excellent show

I have a friend, Camau, competing for Argentina in Hobie cat sailing this year

 

What an amazing show they put on. I am truly impressed. We should hire them for the superbowl.

 

The opening act used 15,000 entertainers and $300 Million dollars! Amazing...

 

I was at the Montreal Olympic Stadium in 1977.

It still wasn't finished.

 

Wow!! Crazy!!

I watched it last night. Go Australia!

 

$300M sounds low but thats bcus they used so much manpower

The stadium is gorgeous beyond description

I think that football field sized LCD screen probably cost at least $1M

Good job China

 

We watched it last nite, it was the most amazing thing that I have ever seen. I loved that huge screen that they had on the field that kept showing all of those images.
We got a pretty good geography lesson last nite also. We never knew that some of the countries that are at the Olympics had such small populations, it was really hard to believe that some of the countries populations weren't even as much as the amount of people that were in the Birds Nest, really amazing stuff. A few of the countries had massive people living in it, but only had like 1 or 2 athletes in the Olympics, we found that a little unusual also.

 

Well for comparison, Athens spent 30M on their opening ceremony.

 

I DVR'ed it thinking it was about 2 hours long. When I turned it on I was amazed by the 4hr + length. But, I was more amazed by the ceremony itself. 72" HD allowed me a great view and it was impressive. I was stunned by the magnitude and precision of the entertainers. It's clear how important China thinks this event is.

Hats off to China.......

Go USA!

 

Now question is, how in the hell is London going to top this at 2012?

 

Thye're not. Unless they decide to force 15,000 people to work for little pay, LOL!

All jokes aside, it was an incredible opening and the "bird's nest" is a beautiful structure. I enjoyed seeing the construction updates of it on TV over the past year or so.

 

Check your history. The olympics were held in Montreal in 1976 . What are you saying?

 

<Reading Comprehension 101>

</Reading Comprehension 101>

I "missed" the big show in China last night as I was preoccupied watching Mother Nature's Fireworks - a spectacular, hours-long display of Lightning and Thunder.

 

I was there on October 7, 1977 when a local daredevil known as "The Human Fly" attempted to fly a rocket motorcycle (built by Ky Michaelson with my assistance) over 26 school busses. This event was hyped and promoted for weeks and included some pre-jump entertainment by Gloria Gaynor ("I Will Survive").

Even though it was more than a year after the Olympics, the stadium was largely unfinished. I've always wondered if they ever got it done.

 

What an amazing ceremony! Us here in America are lazy. They used a lot of man power on that. Great job!

 

In all fairness, the Chinese have a lot more manpower to throw at these things The opening ceremony was incredible. The 2008 tai chi masters in unison was pretty impressive.

The Montreal stadium was never finished as planned. The roof was designed to retract upwards like an umbrella towards the top of the big tower. When they installed it, it was stuck in place and never fixed.

 

I agree that the ceremony was spectacular, but did anyone else get the same sense (as to the comentary) as when CBS used to do F1 events?

 

My wife and I noticed it quit a lot during the show, it seamed like every other word from there mouth was, "Well China did this, or China did that." It seamed like they were trying to smear in our faces how bad China has been in the past to there own people and there own country. We didn't think that was really necessary for a sporting event like the Olympics. They did seam to catch on that China was trying to change by some of the things that were in the presentation, China might change, but it's like the US is now. It doesn't matter who is going to be our next President, a change isn't going to happen overnite and it sure as hell isn't going to happen in the next 4 years.

 

I missed it. Any place to re-watch it online?

 

+1 I was on set filming....really want to see it

 

If you get NBC or have Direct TV more than likely they will be showing it again on NBC. If you have Direct TV, do a search for it, I am sure you will find it on there somewhere.