As many of you already know, the Olympic opening ceremony will have already gotten over with by the time we get to see it on our tellies here stateside (Thanks NBC!).
That's why we ran a live blog filled with screen shots of all the festivities, courtesy of the BBC. (The show ran live from 4 PM to 7:50ish PM ET.)
It was an amazing display. An enormously scary Voldemort, dancing nurses, the royal family, and strange homages to the Industrial Revolution all made appearances.
Our suggestion: scroll all the way to the bottom and make your way up to the top to get the highlights in chronological order.
Cheers!
7:49 PM: AND IT'S ALL OVER!
7:43 PM: MORE FIRE!!!
7:40 PM: Sir Paul McCartney with "Hey, Jude"and the BELL right over his noggin
7:38 PM: Inching closer and closer to the grand finale!
7:35 PM: The lighting ceremony continues
7:28 PM: 5-time British Olympic rowing gold medalist Steve Redgrave runs the Olympic torch into Olympic Stadium
7:24 PM: Becks is back with his boat and the torch!
7:23 PM: These poor soldiers have to carry it up that fake, steep hill for some reason
7:20 PM: Olympic flag makes its grand entrance carried by a bunch of random international dignitaries no one cares one iota about
7:16 PM: The Queen officially opens the Olympic games, leading to an awesome ring of fireworks around Olympic stadium
7:06 PM: William, Kate, and poor ol' dateless Harry
7:03 PM: The weird flying bicycles we were all promised!
6:57 PM: Arctic Monkeys perform after every country is done walking in
6:55 PM: The British are coming! The British are coming!
6:46 PM: USA Basketball struts in sans hipster fashion, unfortunately
Tyson Chandler and Kevin Durant with Anthony Davis in the background looking like a superhuman
Kobe, why you all by yourself?
LeBron saluting
6:44 PM: Michelle Obama cheering the USA
6:43 PM: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
6:40 PM: Nice job pulling off the rugby shirts Sweden
6:36 PM: Pau Gasol getting ready for his silver medal
6:32 PM: Novak Djokovic doing his best "Look ma, I'm holding the flag"-look for Serbia
6:29 PM: Maria Sharapova strutting with a spiffy hat for Russia
6:23 PM: Lolo Jones and Tyson Gay are stoked!
6:21 PM: USA swimmer Lauren Perdue getting ready to walk in with her teammates and beret
Walking in! twitter.com/LoPerdue/statu…
— Lauren Perdue (@LoPerdue) July 27, 2012
6:05 PM: Kazakhstan, you're the best
5:49 PM: Finland is prepared to hide in the snow
5:36 PM: Kids are walking alongside each country's athletes holding some sort of copper jug that's going to be part of the ultra-secretive Olympic cauldron lighting later on. Can't wait!
5:27 PM: Tall Australian flag-bearer is tall
5:23 PM: The athletes have begun their procession through Olympic Stadium. Here are some American Samoans dressed like American Samoans
5:13 PM: Boat it like Beckham....with the Olympic torch. That's how it's getting from London's City Hall to Olympic Stadium
5:09: The inventor of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee for all of you SAI chaps
5:04 PM: The montage clustermesh of modern music and dancing in the second hour isn't as cool as the trip down history lane from earlier. And these MySpace-ey overlays are lame
5:00 PM: Flying silver men on jet packs....so British
4:58 PM: Peace, love and dancing. We've made it to the 60s folks
4:53 PM: What a family of blokes looks like today
4:52 PM: Nothing could be more British than a Mini Cooper. Vroom Vroom!
4:50 PM: Mr. Bean superimposed on the head of a character from "Chariots of Fire"
4:48 PM: Mr. Bean (in character!) playing the keyboard for "Chariots of Fire"
4:42 PM: Scariest and largest Voldemort in the history of scary and large Voldemorts
4:41 PM: Incredibly huge Cruella de Vil
4:37 PM: Dancing nurses and sick children as a tribute to England's National Health Service (NHS)
4:34 PM: The Queen makes her grand appearance. She somehow magically walked into the stands after the epic parachuting
4:29 PM: The Queen jumped out of a plane with James Bond as the James Bond theme song was playing! (Kinda, not really......still awesome)
4:27 PM: James Bond, The Queen, and corgis
4:24 PM: Perhaps the coolest part of the whole show so far....FIRE OLYMPIC RINGS...MADE OF FIRE
4:21 PM: Drumming not as intense as Beijing in 2008, but it's pretty good
4:19 PM: Lots and lots of dancing top hats. Apparently they were quite common in Britain about 150 years ago
4:17 PM: Women's suffrage movement. Yippee!
4:14 PM: Huge smoke stacks! We're still in the Industrial Revolution here
4:11 PM: People are coming out of a levitating tree and peasants are marching into the stadium. It's supposed to represent the advent of the Industrial Revolution or something
4:09 PM: Words from Shakespeare's "Tempest" read by either Scrooge or Abraham Lincoln. We're not sure
4:04 PM: Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins kicked things off by ringing the GIANT Olympic bell
4:00 PM: Children frolic in the British countryside
3:56 PM: The classical music has begun!
Overhead shot from earlier
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