In other words, it ends with the Ewoks.
"Whatever it is that happens afterward," the 63-year-old film-maker said, "that isn't the core Star Wars story that I like to tell."
The stories that do interest Lucas are the ones that take place before Anakin Skywalker dons the ebony mask of Darth Vader, which is why he and his five-year-old Lucasfilm Animation venture will add a seventh feature film to the Star Wars canon with The Clone Wars.
The movie has been produced with state-of-the-art computer-generated animation and voice actors, including Samuel L.
Jackson, reprising his Mace Windu character, and Anthony Daniels as the familiar voice of C-3P0.
That Daniels is back raises the idea that this new approach could provide a digital fountain-of-youth for other original trilogy actors, such as Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, who have not been in the universe of the Jedi since they frolicked with the furry Ewoks on the forested moon of Endor at the end of Return of the Jedi in 1983.
If there is any force behind that concept, Lucas is not feeling it.
"There really isn't any story to tell there," the film-maker said.
"It's been covered in the books and video games and comic books, which are things I think are incredibly creative but that I don't really have anything to do with, other than being the person who built the sandbox they're playing in."
In the non-film versions of the saga, for instance, Han Solo and Princess Leia marry and have three children, one of them named Anakin after his notorious grandfather.
All of it has been popular with core fans, but Lucas does not see any upside to extending the tale past the leafy luau on Endor where Vader's corpse was torched.
"I get asked all the time, `What happens after Return of the Jedi?' and there really is no answer for that," he said.
"The movies were the story of Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker, and when Luke saves the galaxy and redeems his father, that's where that story ends."
The new film will fill in gaps between Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith with stories of Anakin, Padme Amidala, Count Dooku and other second-trilogy characters. - Geoff Boucher
Star Wars: The Clone Wars opens in theatres on Thursday.
