Weak plot is an excuse to deliver special effects

Rating: 4/10 (11 June 1999)

Well, I went into this movie as an avid Star Wars fan, fully expecting to be as disappointed by this movie as I was by ESB and ROJ. And, in this respect, I was not disappointed.
From the very beginning, I realized how contrived everything felt. By the end of the movie I was still waiting for a significant plot to develop, but it never did. So I asked myself "what was the plot?" ... and yes, I did come up with what all of this movie's defenders came up with. But I quickly realized that the whole thing was just an excuse for George Lucas to play with his special effects team. And he did a good job of it.
It's just too bad that the rest of the movie, to be blunt, is terrible. It took me all of about 10 seconds to figure out who the bad guy is after he was introduced (and I avoided nearly all of the pre-movie hype) - although I will admit that this actually passed by the person I saw this with, as they were not as "into" the Star Wars mythology as I am. The characters were, well, boring.
I will admit that I'll still see the rest of this prequel's sequels. Probably for the same reason that I read all of the stupid books based on Star Wars- I got addicted when I was 7 back in the 70's and can't shake it.