Colin Trevorrow , director of Jurassic World and the in-development Star Wars: Episode 9, has confirmed he plans on shooting Star Wars: Episode 9 on film, joining Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: Episode 8 in using the non-digital shooting format. But Trevorrow might top the previous two entries in the Star Wars sequel trilogy with a plan to shoot some Star Wars: Episode 9 footage in outer space.

'Star Wars: Episode 9' To Boldly Go Where No 'Star Wars' Has Gone Before?

The Hollywood Reporter captured Trevorrow’s thoughts at a Sundance Film Festival panel.

"I asked the question, 'Is it possible for us to shoot IMAX film plates in actual space for Star Wars, and I haven't gotten an answer yet, but they've shot IMAX in space," he said.

A “plate” is a background image used for special effects compositing. So while the Star Wars: Episode 9 shoot won’t involve dragging Daisy Ridley and John Boyega up to the International Space Station, there could possibly be actual outer space footage backing some of the signature Star Wars X-Wing dogfights.

Christopher Nolan, who also sat on the panel with Trevorrow, endorsed the idea, saying, "Funny enough, we had that conversation with Interstellar… There's incredible footage from space now."

Trevorrow’s forward-looking desire to shoot Star Wars footage in actual outer space is counterbalanced by his desire to keep the look filmic and old-school.

”The only place where I tend to not be able to attach myself entirely to something shot digitally is when it's a period film. There's something in my brain that goes, 'Well, they didn't have video cameras then,'" Trevorrow said at the panel. “I could never shoot Star Wars on anything but [film] because it's a period film: It happened a long time ago!"

The Star Wars Galaxy Shooting Across Multiple Formats

While the first announced Star Wars Story, Rogue One, is shooting sequences on a 65mm digital camera (the Arri Alexa, also used for part of The Revenant, Captain America: Civil War, and all of Avengers: Infinity War), it too will embrace some old-school film techniques by using the same anamorphic Ultra Panavision 70 lenses that Quentin Tarantino used for The Hateful Eight.

Star Wars: Episode 8 director Rian Johnson also expressed interest in shooting some sequences in a larger format.

The ubiquity of film and large format techniques in upcoming Star Wars movies should continue to make them unique movie theater events, provided you’re able to find one of the rare theaters with large format projectors.

If Star Wars: Episode 9 brings some actual space footage to theaters it’s unlikely viewers will notice. But there’s something very exciting about the prospect of having a Star Wars touched by that shapeless vacuum into which we’ve hurled so many of our greatest stories.