"Better than <em>'Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace'</em>, though <em>'Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones'</em> is again rather underwhelming - if still good on its own merits. Liam Neeson is missed, with the likes of Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen and Christopher Lee failing to set the world alight. McGregor does give the best performance of that quartet; Christensen possibly the weakest, though his character's story is probably the most interesting - or "

" The collective fever that characterized the countdown to The Phantom Menace had long since dissipated by the time the first sequel prequel rolled off the ILM production line. Casual spectators, once stung, had decamped en masse to the newly discovered Middle-Earth, leaving George Lucas with just the few million hardcore fans - true believers who, with all the apprehension of parents at a nativity play, willed their defrocked hero back towards respectability. There are certainly stretches "

"I'm not a diehard _Star Wars_ fan. I've seen all the movies, seen them all more than once even, and I have my opinions, but when I see the way people talk about _Star Wars_ online, I can't really find myself behaving the way that "true fans" or whathaveyou do. That being said, I think that the majority of the _Star Wars_ films have been pretty good. The notable exception to this, for me at least, is the prequels. And yes you can include the animated _Clone Wars_ movie that they made in that era "