It was CGed…?!

The two of us have been watching more TV in the last couple of evenings than the whole of a typical month put together. Yep you’ve guessed it; it’s been the Beijing Olympics and just prior to that, we both finished the entire third season of Battlestar Galactica on rental DVD over 5 evenings.

The Olympics so far has gone well. Great free coverage courtesy of Starhub Cable TV—for the Athens 2004 Olympics, I had a wonky 21 inch TV receiving signals over airwaves. And the Chinese supporters were distinctly more gracious and less hostile towards the Yanks; the Greeks in Athens 2004… *shudder*.

Now, one of the things the both of us missed though was the opening ceremony that everyone had been raving about. How was that? Well, we were watching Ratatouille and missed the live broadcast. Over the weekend, my parents and uncles were all raving about how incredible was the opening ceremony’s fireworks and how the NDP was going to be a kachang puteh display in comparison.

In all honesty, I was a little peeved myself for having completely forgotten about the opening ceremony, so resolved to look around for the DVD when it gets released. I mean, from what everyone else was saying, the ceremony was the event of the year, bigger than The Dark Knight even. So, it was all a little shocking when today’s news screamed…

Parts of the spectacular Beijing Olympics opening ceremony were faked, it has emerged.

The global television audience of more than three billion people watched in amazement as a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks proceeded through the night sky from Tiananmen Square to the Bird’s Nest stadium – except they were watching a computer animation.

Even the giant television screens within the stadium itself broadcast the fake images.

Yeah no kidding. One of the key sequences that wowed the billions of TV viewers had been faked. And if that wasn’t enough, news sources like here and here are now reporting that the uber cute 9 year old singer in the opening ceremony was not only miming, but the voice heard wasn’t hers either…!

Beijing Olympics: Faking scandal over girl who ‘sang’ in opening ceremony

Chinese officials have admitted deceiving the public over another highlight of the Olympic opening ceremony: the picture-perfect schoolgirl who sang as the Chinese flag entered the stadium was performing to another girl’s voice.

Gaaaaahhhh!!!! This is all too much. How am I gonna watch the Opening Ceremony on DVD now and not feel just a mite cheated.

Thankfully, the international news media have been pretty sympathetic even if they were still reporting the facts. After all, Beijing is doing a great job hosting the Olympics regardless. The online Chinese discussion forums have, predictably, fiercely defended the faking with many rationalizing that it was a great show, and so what if a little computer generated trickery was involved.

Though I wonder if some of them are just privately, maybe a little, feeling a little shocked and embarassed themselves. This was a golden opportunity for them to show just what the Chinese people can do, but now people are going to remember “the great opening ceremony that faked parts of it”.