Like millions of others, I grew up on the Star Wars movies. I remember being taken by my dad to see The Empire Strikes Back at the cinema when I was about seven years old and falling into rapture as I witnessed the spectacularly vivid, hugely ambitious vision on the big screen. As a child, it had far more verity for me than my own everyday surroundings, which seemed pretty humdrum when compared to all those epic battles across the vast distances of space.

There have been some great movies on a similar tip over the past 10 years or so which have sent the hairs on the back of my neck pointing outwards in much the way Empire did, but the most recent Star Wars films were not among them. Right up until the end, I held out a little hope that some of the magic of the earlier trilogy might be rediscovered by George Lucas and his team as they ploughed their way through a second triptych in workmanlike fashion. But around six months after Revenge of the Sith had been released, I finally had to admit to myself that the three later films should never have been made.

Since then, matters have spiralled into even more of a fug at Lucasfilm, with the most recent Star Wars big-screen venture, a teaser for the new animated series, meeting with critical and commercial apathy. This from a series which stands as one of the highest-grossing of all time, behind only Harry Potter and James Bond. A live-action TV show is also on the way, anticipation for which is not exactly at fever pitch. Meanwhile, Star Trek, always Star Wars's nerdier, cheaper sibling, has emerged with a new fire in its belly following JJ Abrams's enormously successful reboot.

It therefore strikes me that right now might not be quite the apposite moment to start planning an all-new trilogy of Star Wars films. But that is exactly what the Marketsaw blog says is happening at Lucas HQ.

"I have been hearing rumblings ... extremely quiet at first, but now heating up significantly and from a trusted source – that George Lucas is preparing to unleash another Star Wars trilogy upon us, this time in stereoscopic 3D," squeals the site's editor. "This is not the TV series, these are brand spankin' new 3D Star Wars movies."

Marketsaw goes on to suggest that the films might be directed by such Hollywood luminaries as Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola rather than Lucas. It also contends that the existence of the new movies depends almost entirely on the success of James Cameron's forthcoming Avatar, the science fiction 3D megalith that arrives in December.

Now if this story is true, it would be the scoop of Marketsaw's young life. Naturally, then, many of the other more established US movie blogs have spent a fair bit of time doing their best to pooh-pooh it. Ain't It Cool News went so far as to contact Lucasfilm, which predictably said that it is not considering future Star Wars live-action films.

That statement does not preclude the possibility, however slight, that the story is true. Lucas has already shown that he is more than happy to pillage his own past successes in the name of future profit, time and time again. Ultimately, he has a business to run, employees to pay, and Star Wars is by far his greatest asset. Put it this way, if you were Lucas's bank manager, you'd probably be fairly astounded at the idea that there might not be future Star Wars movies.

Putting aside the matter of the Marketsaw report's truthfulness (and I accept that's a pretty big ask), the interesting question here is how Star Wars might be made great again. If a new series was filmed, should it take the form of a remake, or a completely new trilogy of stories, perhaps based in a different era of the saga's invented history? The latter seems to me to be the best course of action: there is simply no way to better the earlier films, and even Lucas would surely not be fool enough to attempt such a feat.

It goes without saying that the series creator would really be better off waiting at least a decade or two before embarking on any new big-screen venture, but if Star Wars must come back now, it's vital that younger directors with fresh ideas be appointed. Though no spring chicken these days, I'd pay good money to see a Peter Jackson-directed trilogy. Ditto one by Abrams, or even Joss Whedon, who did a great job on the similarly themed Serenity. The Dark Knight's Christopher Nolan is interested in science fiction – his forthcoming film Inception is set to venture into the genre, and he knows how to craft a series that's classy and meaningful, without losing the blockbuster clout.

But Coppola? This surely has to be a joke? The 70-year-old director has regularly describes himself as being on a belated journey into art-house territory, the sort of films he apparently wanted to make before The Godfather.

Most importantly, for a new Star Wars series to be successful, Lucas would have to let go of it altogether from a creative standpoint. Yes George, we know it's your baby, but you really have done your utmost to kill off everything that was ever special about it. So if you must insist on bringing it back, you might want to consider taking a nice long holiday somewhere that doesn't have a telephone or internet access while someone else gets on with the job. Because that, to my mind, is the only way that anybody might risk setting foot in a cinema showing a new Star Wars film, again.