Salad UN

I hope NBC is smart enough to produce a general release of the opening to movie theaters with 3D and large screens. This was an experience that everyone should have the opportunity to see properly. There has NEVER been a show this spectacular, no Super Bowl Halftime, Academy Awards, Vegas Extravaganza or other Olympics Opening- ever! I pity London as they try to follow this act in 2112.

— Posted by William Bergmann

It’s always agonizing to watch NBC’s telecast of the Opening ceremony. One day we may be able to watch programs like this without commercials every 10 minutes. In America we have no idea of how much more beautiful and engrossing an uninterrupted ceremony is. In 1988 in Korea, I watched the opening ceremony on TV with two sets side by side. One was tuned to the NBC telecast through Armed Forces network, and the other was tuned to the Korean Broadcasting company telecast. The Korean broadcast was seamless and captured almost the entire pageant from beginning to end without any interruptions. It was possible to really get into the flow of the activities and get a full appreciation of the drama, action, beauty. The NBC telecast, on the other hand, was more about Bryant Gumbel being able to dialog with mic wearing Carl Lewis down on the field. “Wow” it’s wonderful said Carl or something to that effect. After being surfeited with mealy mouthed Bryant Gumbel and his inane, meant to be funny, quips, I shut off the volume and just watched the whole thing chopped up by NBC commercial TV. This year’s broadcast was pretty much the same, chopped liver with Bob Costas. After a while Bob Costas’s chatter got to be too much. But we get what we get.

— Posted by GEEP

I REALLY hate NBC. They should have carried it live or online like the rest of the world. So many people had to go dig through other sites so they could catch it live.

— Posted by Kev Ricardo

So…they didn’t need Steven Spielberg after all. It was truly amazing in a riveting, once-in-a-lifetime way. Cirque de Soleil multiplied 2008 times.

— Posted by Royi

The opening ceremony can be viewed at the CCTV’s website (http://www.cctv.com/english/special/opening/02/index.s html). You need to click on the chinese link to download a player. I watched the truely spectacular ceremony last night on NBC and therefore I didn’t download the player myself. I suppose you can set a restore point on your PC to make sure the player can be uninstall later.

— Posted by TT

-The way to get to view the openning ceremony online. I haven't tried it, because I watched the whole ceremony on TV at home (without any commercial's inerruption). So glad to be Chinese and live in China. Don't be jealous...(网上看开幕式的地方。我还没试过，因为我是在家里电视上看整场开幕式啦，而且没有广告打扰。作为住在中国的中国人，真是太开心了。不要太嫉妒我...）

August 9th,
2008
1:56 pm

NBC cut some of the segments (e.g. the beijing opera with opera muppets). I hope they release a full DVD version, so we can see the whole uninterrupted.

— Posted by LZ

The ceremony was awesome, but the NBC coverage was just okay. Not terrible but nothing special. Why didn’t they have a Chinese person in the booth with them to lend greater cultural context to the play by play? Major oversight in my opinion. Another pet peeve-they kept referring to the fact that the countries were not in alphabetical order….and mentioned the characters/# of radicals determining the sequence. I wanted to see the characters! NBC could have easily included them at the bottom of the screen along with the english name, map graphic etc. Characters are cool, interesting and beautiful….and relevant considering the millions of overseas Chinese watching the broadcast. Seems like a no brainer to me.

— Posted by Patrick

Have never seen anything like this: condensing 5000 years of history into a two-hour performance with beauty, charm, and grandeur. I would see it second and third time.

Anyone saying it is a bore just reflected his/her own ignorance about history, culture, art, and beauty–it has nothing to do with the awe-inspiring ceremony.

— Posted by Wendy