Makes me wish Clive Barker had followed through and finished the Abarat. It would be a PERFECT pairing.

I saw a review that described them as the love child of Hieronymus Bosch and Terry Gilliam. :D

I went back and reread CP's post and didn't see anything that says that there was an official statement about this. I believe that at least the flowers at the end of it were done by humans.

To the best of my recollection, I do not recall the announcers saying that "yes, that was human power moving the blocks up and down.

I will happily acknowledge the human achievement of that segment when someone can provide reliable/believable documentation/source that humans moved the blocks up and down.

Well, you're the one who recorded it. Go back and fiind it, because the commentators did indeed make such a comment.

I'll never understand it, but this is a pattern in ALL television, and is accentuated for big events. So ubiquitous that it's clearly purposeful. Must sell more happy meals to mix the ads louder. Pretty basic marketing principle...people respond to loud noises.

And shiny things.

I am not sure how much (if any) embellishment there was to the story of the boy walking with Tao Ming. But regardless, it caused Susan and I to well up a bit.

In case you missed it, the story was that the boy lost 20 out of his 30 classmates in the earthquake in May. After he was able to free himself, he went back to help extract his classmates. When asked why he did that, he replied simply, "because I am the room leader."

I plan to - we are still watching (they just lit the cauldron)

Okay, I acquiesce. We went back and watched the segment again. The announcers did say that it was human powered.

I am still not sure how they could go from the blocks being flat on the ground to what appears to being over six feet (or so) tall - I guess they had the platform lowered a bit. Some of the movement of the blocks still appears mechanical to me (rather than just human movement). But the people were under there providing the movement.

I'm assuming the blocks were not free-moving, just the necessary up and down. And yes, they would have to be on a lower level.

There had to have been some stops built in (natch).

I saw nothing that would necessitate mechanical stops. But I've only watched once.