Fireworks go off during the Opening Ceremony. Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
One World. One Dream. One astonishing opening-night show. Friday’s spectacular curtain-raising opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics more than lived up to the hype, and NBC gave us a stunning bird’s-eye view of all of the razzle-dazzle inside the so-called “bird’s nest” of the gargantuan Olympic soccer stadium.Feeling at times as if it were the greatest Vegas or half-time show in history, everything was scaled to overwhelm, from the fireworks that lit up the sky like a month’s worth of 4ths of July, to the scrim that ringed the top of the stadium with evocative cinematic montages, to the thousands of drummers and dancers and performers wowing the crowd, many of them lit up in garish colors like fanciful beacons of joy.To emphasize the fact that this display of cultural pride was being beamed to a global audience, a highlight of the extravaganza involved a giant globe rising from the floor, with dancers skimming around the surface suspended by wire...
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