The NBC broadcast had a segment narrated by Tom Brokaw that touched on this.
I thought it was very well done. The fiddler in the sky looked remarkably like Dilbert’s boss. Great big hair on the opera singer. I didn’t care for the rendition of O Canada but that singer was drop dead gorgeous.
The canoe fiddler was supposed to be the Devil. It is from an old French Canadian tale.
Yeah I guess they trotted out the old tropes but this is for worldwide consumption and these things tend to always be airy fairy things.
For the other suggestions…I’m not sure how you’d portray WWI etc. They Olympics as supposed to be about the world getting together celebrating conflicts don’t fit in that spirit.
Ok so you get guys dressed as cowboys and then they… what? Rope steer?
The railroad would be an interesting effect spreading from east to west connecting the young country.
Of course, it would also be a whitewashed gloss over of the true history or do we depict the use of the Rail to quash the Riel rebbellion or the thousands of “coolies” working on the railroad used for the most dangerous jobs as expedibles then forced back on the boats when they are finished because we didn’t want those types in our country.
so yeah its the blandish things we always trot out but what else do we sell?
just saying is all.
I’ve missed my calling - I’m half Canadian and if I had grown up there I would have most definitely wanted to be a screech-guzzling, mad-fiddling, step-dancer! They were awesome!
Parade of Athletes always makes me tear up for some reason.
I kind of enjoyed Wayne Gretzky’s fixed grin during the cauldron snafu, but really, really relieved when at least most of it worked. I thought the final lap (to light the outside cauldron), WG brandishing a torch in the pouring rain standing up in an SUV kind of …lacked dignity.
Oh, hell, I enjoyed the show. I love my Canadian side, lived there for a time tapping the maple trees and digging out of the snow…
I just learned something.
I thought Stompin’ Tom was referring to a style of singing. Now I know it’s not.
I loved that bear!
Yes, he was the captain of Canada’s basketball team in 2000.
Inside a huge areana, I saw one of the most wonderful displays of all.
I saw …
… snow fall inside,and the floor freeze and thaw, flow and freeze again
… a giant polar bear rise up from the floor and tower over the people on the ice before it
… the northern lights waver in the air beneath the girdered ceiling
… the constellations and animal totems glow among the gathered crowd
… whales spout as they swam across the arena floor
… a mountain rise up from the floor, inviting the athletes to play
… skiers and snowboarders fly down an endless mountain without ever touching the ground
… a man fly in his dreams and touch down in plains of wind-swept grass
… a folk tale come to life and set the place on fire with song and dance
… maple leafs the size of trucks blow across the floor and gather at the center
… a fire of light flow up through the crowd and turn into doves and then fly away
… aboriginal peoples aknowledged and accepted for their heritage and contributions
… 60,000 people stand still and silent in respect and tribute
I don’t know what you guys saw, but accepting a few inevitable glitches, I saw a hell of a show
A truly excellent show that left me spellbound.
I too sensed that the song was a downer, even though it was excellently delivered.
But was Cohen featured in this song ?
I was checking for the lyrics on the net when I came across two versions
The difference is in the last verse.
k. d. lang sang the Jeff Buckley version, not the Cohen version.
No, but… I mean, you’ve got to choose a theme. You can’t do absolutely everything. As it was I found it crushingly long; it was well over three hours. You can’t do everything about Canada or else you’d put everyone to sleep around Hour 7.
Celebrating Canada’s physical landscape is a pretty good theme for the Vancouver games, IMHO, if for no other reason than the Olympics are being held in our most naturally spectacular city. If they were to hold the Summer Games in Toronto, it’d be neat to have a display more centred on Canada’s cultural landscape, since Toronto is so culturally interesting but is (as compared to Vancoouver) not noted for its natural beauties. And we got cowboys in Calgary in 1988.
I’m just a little disappointed that in celebrating our physical landscape they trotted out so many goddamned cliches of Canadian events. It seems we’re no longer allowed to host an event without the obligatory Indian dancers being trotted out (and then bussed back to the reservation just as soon as our guilt is assuaged.) It’s been done a million times and in this particular case was, for the most part, especially boring.
By comparison, the Prairie flying/projection thing was fricking awesome. The projection water effects were awesome. I’ve never seen anything like that before. So they can celebrate our natural beauty and make it pretty cool, as those displays proved. They just had a few too many things that weren’t cool.
Musicians past their prime? Check, check, check. How about a musician who’s’ relevant now? Bring out K-OS.
Or better yet… fewer musicians. Individually, none of the star musical performances added anything to the ceremony. I didn’t get the point of k.d. lang’s performance at all, and Sarah McLachlan’s was only slightly less pointless. More COOL things - more effects, more aerial artistry, more “wow.”
The “fat neck-bearded guy” is in fact the World’s Greatest Overweight Lover, and his name is Shane Koyczan: Shane Koyczan - Wikipedia. The comedic patriotism is not his best angle, so I’d highly recommend something a little more personal, like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f02Q5IFoyKw (this is from the performance where he broke out nationally).
Full disclosure: I went to high school with Shane, but I honestly don’t think I’m biased - I thought he was a fat weirdo back then.
I watched most of it (came in late). It was wonderful. Sure, it had cliches, but what OC hasn’t? IMO, the most cliched things were the hats on the USA team-what moron designed those (oh, yeah-Ralph Lauran, I assume, since his polo guy figured prominently on their jackets). Could those hats have been more hackneyed? I really liked (and want a pair) of the Canuck mittens, though–that lil white maple leaf is too cute on the palms!
I loved the ice, the polar bear and the constellations with the Northern Lights. I loved, loved, loved the whales and the wheat fields were amazing, too. The screech stuff was interesting and new to me–how many tartans did that guy have on? The man/devil in the canoe was odd, but again, interesting. I really appreciated the moment of pure, absolute silence given to the dead luger. I loved that the speeches were in half English, half French (some of them). It was a tad long, but not overly so. The torch was amazing, even if one arm didn’t rise. Gretsky in the back of a Chevy pick-up truck was meh–I wish they had had another famous Canadian light that torch. And I know just the man, and I was sorry he wasn’t a part of the ceremonies…
Where was William Shatner? He would have been perfect. Ok, maybe not to light the torch, but to do something… I hope to see him at something, dammit!
Oh, and NBC should have had a crawl or sub-titles for the French bits. Yes, I know it may have been repetitive but I think it would have been a nice touch. I do hope we don’t make poorly behaved guests in our neighboring country–I still cringe at the bad sportsmanship the US showed at the Atlanta games.
I had been asking about Anne Murray, but she showed up in the end. Is Gordon Lightfoot dead? What about Samantha Bee? (not to light the torch, but just to be there) What about all those celebs from the 70/80s who did SC-TV? Does anyone know what Margaret Atwood looks like? 
I guess k.d. was the nod to the Prairies.
I don’t agree with Colin James being past his prime - he puts out albums all the time. We saw both him and k-os live a couple of years ago, and I’d take Colin James over k-os at this point - k-os was too drunk to perform decently, and Colin put on an excellent show. It’s kind of moot, though - there are thousands of awesome Canadian musicians to choose from, so thousands of them have to get over-looked for something like this.
I thought we’d finally repented as a nation for Bryan Adams. Why, God, WHYYYY???
Our pact with the devil said Celine or Bryan. We went with the lesser of two evils.
He did write that song, and it wasn’t half-bad. Catchy as hell. It’s now officially in my head for all time.
Roméo Dallaire was one of the olympic-flag-bearers, along with the singer, the actor, the astronaut, the race-car driver, two athletes and the mother who lost her son to cancer. This could be interpreted as a statement of the the collection of roles that make up the way our society expresses its humanity, without giving war and conflict a central place in a celebration of what brings humanity together for the good.
On another note:
No matter what you try to assemble to represent Canada, there will always be people who point and say “That’s not my Canada; that doesn’t represent me.” Not enough cowboy hats, not enough codfishing. Too much of somebody else’s region or language, omission of something somebody feels attached to, failure to shoehorn in something to appeal to each group, each region, in this cultureally, geographically, economically, and otherwise very diverse country. I suspect that this constant attempt to express an identity and failure to succeed in producing a monolithic symbol is itself a key feature of the Canadian identity. Identity crisis is part of who we are.
I think that poet was pretty much the apex of that. From his opening remark of “Define Canada” through to the eagerly awaited end, I cringed at nearly every line. But defining Canada is a favourite sport of Canadians, and the poet came up with most of the same things as the usual attempts.
Overall on the ceremony, not too bad, though. The job was to express our identity to ourselves (as discussed above, a perpetual and impossible task), welcome the world with a taste of who we are, express the spirit of humanity as associated with sport, and carry on the tradition of the Olympics in a respectful way. I think it did these pretty well. And I agree that the projection work, with the whales and the aurora, ice floes, and leaves, was really impressive. Those aboriginal people sure looked like they were tired of dancing by the end of the parade, though.
I can see why VANOC wanted to have the cauldron-lighting co-located with the rest of the ceremony, but have a permanent cauldron outdoors for all to see (and why they wanted the ceremony indoors in rainy Vancouver), but the long slow-motion ride in the pickup truck, with prominent police escort and Gretzky’s torch needing replacement twice, was an awkward way to follow-up the awkward failure of the indoor cauldron.
But now, let the games begin, and let’s take pride in playing host to the one of the biggest peaceful congresses of nations on Earth. Let’s engage with this expression of our shared humanity and a competition whose form flows from those things we have in common: the human body, culture, and the climate of our home planet.
Very well said. I’d just like to add I choked up during the final torch relay, and seeing Nancy Green Raine brought back memories from when I was 8 years old.
In fact, you’ll notice there was no reference whatsoever to Ontario or Quebec, between the two of them a majority of Canadians. I mean, I guess a few of the celebs were Ontarioan or Québecois, but that doesn’t really count!
ETA: sorry, I thought I was reading this thread up-to-date, and I wasn’t… oops…
Heh, I liked the ceremony, but I think we can safely say its a blessing the ceremony didn’t try and talk up Canadian engineering prowess too much. The irony at the end would’ve been painful.
But yea, torch raising snafus aside, one of the better opening ceremonies. I woulda ditched most of the pop-musician acts, but other then that it was pretty cool.
Not being Canadian, I guess I didn’t see the cliches. I didn’t know fiddling and step dancing was big in Canada but I loved the segments. I’m pretty forgiving of OCs in general as I just love the Olympics. I thought the girl who sang Oh Canada had a beautiful voice but didn’t much care for her version. I felt badly that the torch didn’t deploy properly but it didn’t ruin anything for me - I thought the special effects were amazing - loved the whales and the flying kid over the prairies.
Now I have to find me some of those Team Canada mittens! I wonder if I can order them online somewhere…
ETA: Damn! They’re out of stock at the Canada Olympic store. 