During the last week of April, the inner child in me had a couple of wonderful trips down memory lane with the rerelease of “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” in theaters and the shadow drop of the video game “The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: Remastered.”
“Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith”
I have neglected to mention it in this column, but I am a gigantic “Star Wars” fan and have been basically since the day I was born. Some of my earliest memories include watching the special editions of the original trilogy. Growing up in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, the prequels were a significant part of my childhood. I don’t remember exactly if I saw “The Phantom Menace” in theaters because I would have been 2 at the time, but I do remember vividly going to see “Attack of the Clones” and ROTS in theaters.
I understand that older fans at the time widely disliked these movies but as a kid, it was amazing to be able to see “Star Wars” movies in theaters for the first time, and I thoroughly enjoyed each of them when I was growing up. As I’ve grown up, I think “Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones” have aged quite poorly, especially “Attack of the Clones,” but not ROTS. I can confidently say that ROTS is my favorite “Star Wars” movie, and I was so excited to be able to catch it in theaters again, even though I have probably watched it at least 50 times.
When I went for the first time to see it all the way back in 2005, I believe my whole family went to see it when it released, but I was happy to be able to watch it again with my dad, the one who got me into “Star Wars” all those years ago.
To be greeted by Hayden Christiansen, the actor who plays Anakin Skywalker, in an intro was awesome to see, as he was largely panned for his performances back in the day. To me, it has been wonderful to see my generation of “Star Wars” fans embrace him and to see him come back with roles in the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and “Ahsoka” Disney+ series.
In terms of the plot of the movie, I’m sure many readers know that ROTS is the culmination of “Star Wars’” prequel trilogy and the final step as Anakin turns into Darth Vader. Alongside Anakin’s fall to the dark side, viewers also watch as the Republic falls into the empire as Chancellor Palpatine, who is the Sith Lord Darth Sidious — played by Ian McDiarmid — takes over as the Emperor. Along the way we see the fall of the Jedi order, culminating in the best lightsaber duel in history between Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi — played by Ewan McGregor — on the volcanic Mustafar.
It was a fun experience to be in a theater full of people who have seen this movie countless times, and to see that I wasn’t the only one to be able to quote most of it line by line. Every time I watch this movie, I convince myself that Anakin isn’t going to turn and it’s just as devastating with each watch.
While the dialogue is very corny at times, iconic lines like Obi-Wan’s “Hello there,” or the hilariously over the top lines Palpatine says during his fight with Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson) always put a smile on my face every time I see this movie.
One thing that has truly amplified my love for this movie is the animated series, “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” which works to fill in the gaps between AOTC and ROTS, by further developing the characters and storyline before the events of ROTC. Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side is especially elaborated on and provides so much more context to his fall and doubt in the Jedi.
Every time I watch ROTS I have to go back to the last four episodes of “Clone Wars” as they take place at the same time as the movie, which is what I had to do once again.
I’m sure this won’t be the last time I see ROTS in theaters with plenty of “Star Wars” milestone years coming up, but I was happy to be able to experience this movie again like I did all those years ago.
Seeing this again in theaters has also reignited my love for the series so I am excited to dive into some of the shows I have missed in the last few years.
ROTS was in theaters again for its 20th anniversary from April 25-30 and had left theaters by press time.
“The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: Remastered”
Throughout the month of April, I was genuinely tweaking when news began surfacing that not only was a remaster of 2006’s “Oblivion,” my favorite game in “The Elder Scrolls” series, was getting a remaster, but that it would be released the day it was announced. And lo and behold, on April 21, a teaser was posted by Bethesda Game Studios with the IV and the character that appeared on the cover art with the quote, “All will be revealed.” All was most certainly revealed when the game was announced and released immediately.
In a previous review, I mentioned my love for Bethesda Game Studios’ Fallout series, but I did not discuss “The Elder Scrolls” series they also make games for. “Oblivion” was the game that sucked me into the series, which I played in 2011 in the lead up to the release of “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” one of the biggest video games of all time.
“The Elder Scrolls” is a series that takes place in the world of Tamriel, a medieval setting with magic, weird creatures, factions, different gods with their own quirks and so much more. In “Oblivion,” you play as a prisoner who has the fortune of having a secret escape tunnel for Emperor Uriel Septim the VII go through your cell, leading to your freedom while attempting to protect the emperor from his assassins. “Oblivion” takes place at the seat of the Empire’s power in the province of Cyrodiil.
Like most of Bethesda Game Studios’ games, “Oblivion” drops the player into an open-world sandbox where they can do quests, explore and fight using a variety of weapons and magic on their way through the game.
To preface this, “Oblivion” is a weird game with a lot of jank, that Game Director and Executive Producer Todd Howard lovingly referred to as “charm” in the livestream announcing the remaster. The jank is on full display with weird physics mechanics, voice actors having parts where they completely redo their lines mid-sentence and some things that just didn’t work properly. The weirdness comes from the game’s setting as well as the characters you meet along the way and sometimes ridiculous situations you find yourself in.
What makes “Oblivion” stand out to me is the main questline along with the quests for different factions like the “Dark Brotherhood” or the “Fighters Guild,” along with some stand out performances from famous actors like Sir Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean. The open world is still a joy to walk through 19 years later, even though newer games have had a much larger scope for those.
The remaster keeps much of the same charm of the original with some necessary fixes. In the original, the leveling system was completely broken so the game would get very hard, very fast if you didn’t know what you were doing, but that was pretty much completely fixed in the remaster. The new coat of paint is amazing, and it is stunning to see how the graphics have changed after such a long time. One thing that they did not fix however, is the repetitive dungeon spaces, many of them look identical and they do start to get old after several hours.
The remaster also includes all of the original’s downloadable content and expansions, including the infamous horse armor that started the trend of microtransactions in the video game industry.
I have not finished “Oblivion: Remastered” at the time of writing but I’m excited to continue to explore this reimagined Cyrodiil again over the coming weeks and months.
“Oblivion: Remastered” is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
