With the internet already awash with Star Wars rumours and counter-rumours, and bloggers' blaster fingers already itching for some concrete Episode VII news, the job of separating truth from Lando-style vapour is well and truly on.

So what do we know? Well, one fascinating nugget that EW have picked up on is a top-secret meeting that took place between George Lucas, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. According to Hamill the idea of zipping on Luke Skywalker's flightsuit again, even in as ageing version of the Jedi, wasn't raised, but Lucas was already set on a new trilogy.

"Last August [George] asked Carrie and I to have lunch with him and we did. I thought he was going to talk about either his retirement or the Star Wars TV series that I’ve heard about - which I don’t think we were going to be involved in anyway, because that takes place between the prequels and the ones we were in and, if Luke were in them, he’d be anywhere from a toddler to a teenager so they’d get an age-appropriate actor — or the 3-D releases.

"So when he said, 'We decided we’re going to do Episodes VII, VIII, and IX,' I was just gobsmacked. 'What? Are you nuts?!'", remembers Hamill. "I guess he wanted us to know before everybody else knew. He said, 'Now you can't tell anybody!' Even now I’m nervous about saying anything. I just don’t know!"

According to Hamill, Lucas was "just talking about writers and the fact that he wouldn’t be directing" at that stage. With Kathleen Kennedy, Star Wars producer and the new Lucasfilm head at Disney, taking up the mantle, the suspicion is that a writer, and even director, are already locked and the story in place.

Expect more - a lot more - in the weeks ahead. Here are Empire's thoughts on what lies ahead for Star Wars and Disney, as well the directions Episode VII might take us.