Opening Ceremony Analysis

Full honesty, I missed some pieces of it for deep-dish pizza but my multiple Olympic sources told me I didn’t miss much. If anything I would love to see the initial live broadcast and not the primetime replay. I heard the mechanical water horse ran for much longer in the afternoon viewing and I am still trying to figure out if it was on giant water skis or a submarine.

Overall, I applaud them for trying to do something different. And I think there is something interesting there, especially in a very historic city like Paris. I really liked the journey through the city and the special moments at some of the best-known buildings and locations. And they addressed a complaint we’ve all had about previous opening ceremonies…when the F is the parade of nations going to be over. They actually tackled that challenge head-on and said we are going to weave the parade throughout the entire program so it’s not just 90 minutes straight of people walking.

But I think I just figured out why I don’t think it was a resounding success for me. Olympic opening ceremonies are usually pretty abstract with little vignettes highlighting aspects of culture and moments in history and you just roll with it. Paris used a lot of pre-recorded moments that were not abstract and went deep into specific narratives. Like the Phantom dude seeing the Mona Lisa missing and the amazing Minion short film and then the painting is just floating in the river and then we are just pretending the French suddenly don’t care about their most prized piece of art.

It’s like they started with a very elaborate storyboard of the entire opening ceremony and then slowly had to cut things out for logistic reasons and time and what was left was bleh. Like the last season of Game of Thrones. One second you are watching Kirabati on a tiny boat wondering why they got one to themselves and the next second you are watching the start of a threesome after vandalizing a library. And just like GoT, it ended with a person atop the iron throne/tower with a unique style of speaking who is overcoming a physical disability to show the world what’s possible. Who doesn’t love a surprise Celine Dion performance?

I give it a B overall for taking a huge risk and the amount of amazing memes I already saw this morning. Go Big or Go Home.