Sorry, this is probably not the worst thing China's done during the week, probably not even the most dishonest thing they've done in the Olympics, but it's just so bald-faced.
Fireworks over the Olympics pyrotechnics erupted when it was learned that part of the elaborate display broadcast to the world in the opening ceremony was faked, done digitally in 3-D computer graphics.Just when you think that your government ranks among the most deceitful in the world, the Olympics creates a reality check and lets you know what the competition's really like. At least 'mission accomplished' is now used to mean 'I have successfully defrauded a large number of people.' C'mon Team Bush! USA! USA!
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Even those at the city’s new Bird’s Nest National Stadium, where the Olympics are being held, viewed the fake footage from their seats as they watched on the stadium’s giant television screens, said Britain’s Sky News, in a story, “Olympic Fireworks Faked for TV.”
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“Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks,” [Gao] Xiaolong[, head of the visual effects team for the ceremony] said in comments that appeared in the Daily Telegraph. “But most of the audience thought it was filmed live — so that was mission accomplished.”
3 comments:
Your title is so...apt
It is totally unfair of course, but somehow, where this sort of thing is totally, utterly unthinkable in a Western society, it is reasonable in China. Why?
Perhaps it is intent? In this case aren't they simply trying to create magic? And they are so pleased that they succeeded. It was quite a show! Not sure where the harm is?
Fireworks is a Chinese art, and if anyone's entitled to digitally enhance them, it's the Chinese.
But no one is.
As an Olympic host country, China was competing for the amount of brouhaha they could create. And fireworks are part of that. They were misrepresenting their digital superpositions as these works of art on which nations compete -- every time I go to Canada, it seems, there's a bunch of other countries there competing with fireworks displays.
Fireworks are a particular thing. We don't allow athletes to be enhanced by drugs or prosthetics, because the isolation of particular things is fundamental to international competition on those things. Red China was essentially thumbing its nose at the concept of unenhanced presentation. It's a bad way to start an Olympics.
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