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.

  • Flying SquidOP
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    811 months ago

    Minions. MINIONS. Like from Despicable Me. I’m not really here, I took some sort of massive dose of shrooms accidentally, right?

    • Don_Dickle
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      411 months ago

      I only did shrooms once. Then I learned they are grown in cow shit and almost puked after that.

      • Flying SquidOP
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        511 months ago

        I don’t remember doing any shrooms when I got up this morning, but that might just be the shrooms.

      • teft
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        611 months ago

        They can be found in cow shit but they don’t have to be. Modern lab grown mushrooms are grown in sterilized growing medium.

        • Don_Dickle
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          311 months ago

          I have never heard of lab grown mushrooms…and probably a dumb question but are they legal since being lab grown?

          • teft
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            411 months ago

            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.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 months ago

      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)

  • @[email protected]
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    611 months ago

    It got much better. The horse running down the river gave me chills. I was in Paris a couple of months ago, and this has become quite a feat. The rain made it even more surreal.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 months ago

    I’ve re-watched that Gojira performance like 10 times. The beheaded Marie Antionettes were <chef’s kiss>.

    I’m getting old and have watched a lot of opening ceremonies with all of this art that they have to explain the meaning to you.

    In front of an in-person audience of hundreds of world leaders and live to the entire world, the French chose to depict their final monarch that they deposed and beheaded while playing death metal and opera. That’s one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen. And the announcers didn’t have to explain to you how badass it was.

    • @[email protected]
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      511 months ago

      Technically, they had a few more monarchs (Louis XVIII, Charles X, Louis Philippe I) after Marie Antoinette’s husband even if you don’t count the two emperors. The fifth republic looks unlikely to lapse, though

  • @[email protected]
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    711 months ago

    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.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        Except for the 2020 Olympics that were in 2021.

        And the Winter Olympics used to be the same year as Summer Olympics until 1994.

  • Don_Dickle
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    1411 months ago

    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.

    • Flying SquidOP
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      911 months ago

      I wouldn’t say that. London 2012 was an amazing spectacle.

      This looks like they spent about 20 Euros on the whole thing.

    • @[email protected]
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      1711 months ago

      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!

      • Curious Canid
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        711 months ago

        That’s going to depend rather heavily on who wins the next election.

      • @[email protected]
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        511 months ago

        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!”

        • @[email protected]
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          211 months ago

          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!”

    • @[email protected]
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      311 months ago

      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.

    • Flying SquidOP
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      311 months ago

      Yeah, what’s going on with the parkour? I don’t get any of this. It’s totally unfocused apart from anything else.

          • @[email protected]
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            511 months ago

            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

          • @[email protected]
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            611 months ago

            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

            • Flying SquidOP
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              211 months ago

              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…

      • Don_Dickle
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        411 months ago

        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.

    • Flying SquidOP
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      1011 months ago

      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?

  • @[email protected]
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    411 months ago

    This is why all Olympics - whether ceremonies or matches - get recorded on the DVR, so we can skip past all the nonsense.

  • @[email protected]
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    3511 months ago

    The decapitated Mary Antoinettes singing operatic methal from a palace’s windows were cool.

  • @[email protected]
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    811 months ago

    <Insert clip of the time Crusty the Clown replaced Itchy and Scratchy with an alternative cartoon>

  • @[email protected]
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    811 months ago

    I’ve never understood the spectacle of the opening ceremonies, especially as they got more and more elaborate. Not for me.

    • Optional
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      611 months ago

      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.

    • Flying SquidOP
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      611 months ago

      Honestly, I’m mostly scare-watching after the attack on the train this morning. Thankfully, nothing bad has happened so far.

      • Don_Dickle
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        311 months ago

        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.