“”Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” which is a continuation of an earlier animated TV series, is basically just a 98-minute trailer for the autumn launch of a new series on the Cartoon Network.

The familiar “Star Wars” logo and the pulse-pounding John Williams score now lift the curtain on a deadening film that cuts corners on its animation and slumbers through a plot that (a) makes us feel like we’ve seen it all before, and (b) makes us wish we hadn’t.

You know you’re in trouble when the most interesting new character is Jabba the Hutt’s uncle. The big revelation is that Jabba has an infant to be kidnapped. The big discovery is that Hutts look like that when born, only smaller. The question is, who is Jabba’s wife? The puzzle is, how do Hutts copulate? Like snails, I speculate. If you don’t know how snails do it, let’s not even go there. The last thing this movie needs is a Jabba the Hutt sex scene.”

(Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times)