What did you think of the Rio Olympic opening ceremony?

Sometimes simple is better. I watched some of it but got tired of the announcers (Japanese. But it wouldn't matter what country or language).

What is it about these talking heads that think they have to explain or comment on events like this? Can't they just shu-dup and let us enjoy it?

Enjoyed the Opening Ceremony. It was simple ... yet got the vital messages across. As for all those unnecessary comments by the "talking heads," as FizzBit called them, I just tuned them out and followed the ceremony itself.

Generally opening ceremonies are about the story the country wants to believe about itself - there may even be some small truth in it - and therefore the story it wants to convince the world is a truth. They are useful to watch because they briefly expose the ideology of the country in a compact spectacle.

Getting Gisele Bündchen to walk across the stadium? What was all that about? I was waiting for her to do something when she got to the other end - but that was all! What the?

Started to watch it but was so bored by half past midnight I went to bed. Too few people for the size of the stadium, it looked threadbare and sad. The clubs that produce the Carnival parade do a better job. Accepting they are in financial straits (in which case why volunteer to spend vast amounts on hosting the Olympics?) involving the carnival folk would have produced a better and more democratic, less elitist eco-superior off-putting and feeble effort. The fireworks were nice.

I don't. Missed it on purpose.

Getting Gisele Bündchen to walk across the stadium? What was all that about? I was waiting for her to do something when she got to the other end - but that was all! What the?

Without the announcers explaining it, many people wouldn't know. She represented "The Girl from Ipanema"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_from_Ipanema

It was Gisele, her walk, and Daniel Jobim on the piano, singing The Girl from Ipanema.

Daniel Jobim is the grandson of legendary Brazilian composer and songwriter Tom Jobim, who wrote the original melody. As Gisele walked the length of the floor, she walked to a large superimposed image of the elder Jobim, who is referred to in the program simply as maestro.

The song was inspired by a seventeen-year-old girl living on Montenegro Street in Ipanema. Daily, she would stroll past the Veloso bar-café, not just to the beach ("each day when she walks to the sea"), but in the everyday course of her life. She would sometimes enter the bar to buy cigarettes for her mother and leave to the sound of wolf-whistles.

Thus, the long catwalk.

Didnt the Hiroshima Ceremony preempt the entertainment part, on NHK?

To be honest, I watched it for Gisele. I like her very much. The fact that she owns a whooping $440 Million value (Source: http://www.incomeworth.com/gisele-bundchen-net-worth/) explains her success.

All the best Gisele.