Actually, most of the effects I thought were fine, as you say it was obviously low budget and there ARE mor important things in a movie than effects, two things made it worse for me though. Firstly I feel the plot's inconsistencies with characters and the original WC storyline took away any affection I might have had for the characters and the story (and consequently any sympathy for the poor overall production quality), I mean does anyone actually CARE about those plastic characters and their boring war? Not me! Secondly, those fighters...I mean a lot could have been forgiven about it's low-budgetness if they hadn't used those ugly, ungraceful hunks of crap. The ship design in the WC games gave them a lot of flare which was immediately taken away by that.
I've read that people actually went to see it at the cinema back in '99 to see the trailer for Phantom Menace, and after the trailer walked out, and that Fox wanted to pull the trailer off WC after it debuted LOL.