Heard the big sci-fi rumor? Messages boards went wild over the weekend based on an unsourced report that George Lucas might be making another Star Wars trilogy, timed to land after the planned 3-D re-release of the first six episodes.

Some fans swooned over the possibility while others – still seething over the second batch of Star Wars films and other gripes – spewed bile on the idea. While Lucasfilm predictably denied the rumor, we think Lucas should reconsider.

Here's our five cents, in the form of five reasons why the Skywalker Ranch hands should get cracking on another trilogy in a hyperspace nanosecond.

5. It's not a stretch. Lucasfilm has been building out the Star Wars cinema and toon universe ever since The Phantom Menace landed in 1999. The excellent Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series is currently on its third season, heading for 66 episodes, with more surely to come. Another Star Wars live-action TV series, aiming to deliver a syndication-friendly 100 episodes, is up next. Just using those numbers alone, that's more than 80 hours of Star Wars storytelling. What's another six-plus hours of film?

4. The last trilogy wasn't great. Lucasfilm's second Star Wars trilogy simply didn't meet the mammoth expectations created by the first one. Another cycle of three films, done well, might give fanboys some closure. Although the second trilogy finished strong with the dark and dystopian Revenge of the Sith, the movie just couldn't wash away the stain of Jar Jar Binks or Anakin and Padme's roll in the hay. Third time's a charm!

3. It's for a good cause. George Lucas has pledged a massive chunk of his prodigious estate to charity. Even haters have to admit that another three features would bring another three truckloads of cash to younglings worldwide. (If they won't, maybe they should put half their money where their flapping gums are.)

2. Avatar needs the competition. Star Wars gave birth to next-gen sci-fi cinema in 1977, and lorded over it for decades until James Cameron's Avatar came along and pwned it last year. Now Cameron's immersive 3-D experiment is the highest-grossing film of all time, as well as the benchmark for blockbuster sci-fi cinema's new normal – and he's got two sequels on the way. A new Star Wars trilogy raising the immersive 3-D stakes could bring the Oscar statues and street cred back to papa Lucas. That would perhaps please not just Star Wars loyalists, but also Academy voters who gave Cameron the gas face and hilariously awarded the Best Picture Oscar to his ex-wife's underwhelming film The Hurt Locker.

1. Star Wars purists need a diaper change. I saw Star Wars in the theater in 1977, just like a host of other fans around the world. But it's exceedingly hard not to laugh when fandom loses its nut over the possibility of another film trilogy, or even the failed ambition of the last one. Lucas makes a busload of bank (for Skywalker Ranch and charity, remember) by making movies for every childhood, not just ours.

The fanboys and fangirls who are sad that Lucas might tread on their cherished memories of Han Solo's hairy chest, or Luke Skywalker's petulant whining about having to go to the Tosche Station to pick up some power converters, or whatever, need to step back into the timestream and grow up. Sure, Jar Jar Binks still sucks, and that will probably never change. (Why do you think Lucas had him sell out the Senate by proposing to give Palpatine unitary executive power?). But Lucas doesn't suck, nor has he sold out our sacred childhood fantasies. He's the one that built them, and another trilogy will remind us all of that inescapable truth.

Blowback: Should George Lucas Film a New Star Wars Trilogy? ————————————————————-

What's your take? Should Lucas make a third Star Wars trilogy or rest on his laurels? Let us know in the comments below.

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