After reading Especensors blog about it I searched for it, and found it linked on youtube. I just watched it and it was AMAZING! If you haven't seen it, go see it http://2008olympics2008.blogspot.com/.
When they made the olympic symbol float I kind of thought for a sec that they had secretly invented holograms or something. Now I think it was just lights and they pulled it up with ropes or something.Then there were those guys drawing with their bodies, and lets not forget those people from before who were banging on those things to make lights and stuff. They were perfectly synchronized, everytime they did something a nice BOOM went off because they all did it at the same time. Amazing. Then those fireworks! What else do you expect from a country who probably makes all the fireworks in the world... Next those dragon performances (always thought those were cool) were nice too and the puppeteers. Next the dancing with those green clothing things, awesome. Let's not forget that she did her dancing on basically a large piece of paper that was being carried by a bunch of people. How do you perform for so many people for an event that will be around forever anyways? Next, the martial arts. I've always been really interested in Martial Arts, though the reasons why have greatly changed over all these years. The Tai Chi displays were very nice. I've always found Tai Chi interesting, the way it flows like water and is calm like a breeze and is known to enhance life in many ways. But at the same time such a calm art can also be used for self-defense if one knows how to do so. I really liked it, it was awesome. Lastly, the music! The music played throughout was great, especially the music performance. The sheer amount of people that were a part of this opening is another thing that makes it amazing. You see a bunch of little light, only to find that each one of them is a seperate person with a light suit creating those designs and etc...
I don't think any other country could have made a better opening. And if they could, it would probably cost them several times the price China paid to do theirs what with their cheap labour and such 
So if you beat them one way (I doubt it's possible), you can't beat them the other.