First it starts with a comedy video which turns into this weird creepy thing about kids running through the Paris sewers, encountering an alligator, then getting rowed out and into the Seine by a ghost and it cuts to reality and all the nations are going down the river on boats past a bunch of water jets because they’re not doing this in a stadium.
This looks awful and ridiculous. Compare this to the spectacle of London 2012.
Now they’re doing some weird old Hollywood movie musical style musical number with Lady Gaga and she’s on a staircase, which is… somewhere in Paris?
I am so fucking confused.
Edit: They just cut to Macron and he looks as confused as I am.
Yeah, what’s going on with the parkour? I don’t get any of this. It’s totally unfocused apart from anything else.
It’s just french things…parkour is originally french…so…profit.
Okay, but why this Assassin’s Creed/ghost dude?
I think it’s the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera, a famous piece of French literature and adapted to many other formats since its original publication, but I haven’t been able to confirm that’s who it’s supposed to be
I guess that makes sense, but they might have gone with a more recognizable look. Like a regular mask that a lady might pull off…
He’s carrying the torch to light the Olympic “bonfire”…I guess…but I don’t know the relation to anything mystical that they may be hinting at with Assassin’s creed…c’est une surprise :3
Ubisoft is French, so the Assassin’s Creed’s reference makes sense
When I first learned how to do parkour I thought it should be an Olympic sport. Just set up some type of street and obstacles and get scored on how well you handle it plus how fast you go thru it.
Clearly thou ART not like the French.
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!
With the anchors telling viewers, “This flyover is of an F-35 squadron. The program has cost almost 2 trillion. The military has stated it will be using it less going forward. NOW HERE’S BEYONCÉ!”
I was at an air show in Canada a few weeks ago where among other performances they had the F-18s Canada currently uses, the Eurofighter Typhoon that lost the bid to replace the Canadian F-18s, and the F-35 that won the bid to replace the F-18. It was raining that day but the F-18s and Typhoon still performed. The F-35, however, did not; it can’t fly in the rain because its paint will come off. I found that pretty hilarious in juxtaposition. “Thanks for the purchase! Here’s your upgrade that can only fly on nice days! Be sure to tell your enemies to not attack you when it’s raining!”
That’s on the edge - but not out of - the realm of possibility.
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.
I don’t think the US is particularly good at doing ‘fun weird’. We tend to take ourselves too seriously.
Eurovision would never happen in the US for instance.
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.
If you are actually heading trouble remembering what years the summer Olympics are in here is something that can help. Summer Olympics, leap years, and us presidential elections are always the same years.
Except for the 2020 Olympics that were in 2021.
And the Winter Olympics used to be the same year as Summer Olympics until 1994.
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.
so far I think you ment yet because apparently the French are running out of food and one whole team had to be sent back home. But France is keeping a tight lip about all things.
Lovely. I hadn’t heard that yet.
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.
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
Sounds like Arte. lol
I always find it strange when host nations choose performers from the non-host nation. Like why is Gaga there? She’s not French.
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
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.
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.
Celine Dion will be there too apparently. I guess she’s from a Francophone part of Canada at least?
Céline Marie Claudette Dion
Nah, sounds English to me.
She’s Canadian. Quebecois. Her parents too. She is descended from French ancestors, but she is not French. Of course, being from Quebec, she speaks French fluently. I’m not sure if people in France can tell she’s Canadian from her accent or the words she uses or whatever. Canadian French is different in some ways from French spoken in France. Not enough to not be mutually understood- similar to the UK and the US.
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French with a Canadian partner here. Trust me with some deep-countryside type Quebec folks, we definitely can’t understand anything they’re saying. To be fair, the same could be said about folks in deep rural regions in France…
True about parts of the UK too though. Especially Scotland.
Yes, I go there regularly and same deal, I struggled even more in Ireland but I think that’s because of my Scottish friends I’ve developed a bit of an ear for it.
She is even used in memes because one of her lyrics sounds like “I don’t wanna be french” which makes it even funnier
Gaga, ooh-la-la?
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.
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
What country are you in? I can’t see it in the US
Ugh, might be a EU region lock thing. I hate that type of restriction, especially for a global sports Event. The organizers or media have been going after every shred of shared media from the ceremony. It’s ridiculous, do you want to promote you event or not?
Sorry for the rant, but these antiquated copyright behaviors make me angry.
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.
I had heard that Gojira was playing, and I figured it was their portion.
it was real !!
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
Minions was the best part. And the blue guy with the yellow beard.
I only did shrooms once. Then I learned they are grown in cow shit and almost puked after that.
They can be found in cow shit but they don’t have to be. Modern lab grown mushrooms are grown in sterilized growing medium.
I have never heard of lab grown mushrooms…and probably a dumb question but are they legal since being lab grown?
It fully depends on where you live. If psychedelic mushrooms are illegal where you live then lab grown ones probably are. Most of the time spores aren’t illegal to possess. Also did you know that a bag of uncle bens is a sterile bag of starches? Do with that information what you will.
Nah. Meth isn’t legal because it’s made in a lab.
Or a bathtub or a truck or in your back yard or in a fish tank or hell even a two liter bottle.
Right. I already said in a lab
I don’t remember doing any shrooms when I got up this morning, but that might just be the shrooms.
Lots of people in this thread have never seen Les Miserables
<Insert clip of the time Crusty the Clown replaced Itchy and Scratchy with an alternative cartoon>
Why did the ghost just start doing parkour?
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.
Yeah, but it’s a dumb looking ghost. It’s like an Assassin’s Creed character without a face. But he does have the power to bring everything in the Louvre to life, so there’s that.
Also, I just saw Napoleon BMXing.
Modern parkour and Assassin’s Creed developers Ubisoft are both French, so it was probably just intentionally showing off popular French stuff
it’s a dumb looking ghost
It’s okay, you’ve already sold me
For you the day that Napoleon opened the Olympics BMXing your life was changed.
For Napoleon it was a Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Kvw2BPKjz0 new olympic sport lol it’s french :D
Also, Ubisoft is French, so the Assassin’s Creed’s reference makes sense
hah, completely missed that. That also strangely concentrates the parkour games in Europe: Dying light from Tecland (Poland), Mirror’s edge by Dice (Sweden).
This is why all Olympics - whether ceremonies or matches - get recorded on the DVR, so we can skip past all the nonsense.
Yes, but it was pretty much entirely nonsense.
