This is a review of the Opening Ceremonies DVD produced by NBC. None of the actual competition is on this DVD.
I'm sure its hard to even partially capture the monstrous spectacle of an Olympiad, still harder to condense it into bite-size segments for viewing on even a widescreen TV. Nonetheless, and unfortunately, the NBC produced DVD of the Opening Ceremonies actually does the spectacle a disservice.
Essentially, this DVD came straight from the NBC airwaves. It is not the entire ceremony, but has been edited, apparently for "American" audiences. Worse still, it has been overlaid with the banal commentary of the NBC announcers. The only saving grace is that the commercials have been removed.
We can hope that the Beijing Olympic Committee will see an opportunity to produce a complete, full length, and untainted version of the opening ceremonies. But until then this is the best we have, and it still gets only a 4, not because the ceremonies were unimpressive, but because the DVD is decidedly sub-par.
I'm sure its hard to even partially capture the monstrous spectacle of an Olympiad, still harder to condense it into bite-size segments for viewing on even a widescreen TV. Nonetheless, and unfortunately, the NBC produced DVD of the Opening Ceremonies actually does the spectacle a disservice.
Essentially, this DVD came straight from the NBC airwaves. It is not the entire ceremony, but has been edited, apparently for "American" audiences. Worse still, it has been overlaid with the banal commentary of the NBC announcers. The only saving grace is that the commercials have been removed.
We can hope that the Beijing Olympic Committee will see an opportunity to produce a complete, full length, and untainted version of the opening ceremonies. But until then this is the best we have, and it still gets only a 4, not because the ceremonies were unimpressive, but because the DVD is decidedly sub-par.
