When I was young I was a full blown nerd. I still am in many ways. My nerd-dom was super accelerated by a movie called Star Wars. I must have seen it in the theaters at least six times, a close friend of mine saw it 19 times. When the “Empire Strikes Back” was released this same friend would soon gain the habit of referring to the character of the bounty hunter as “my man Fett”. My friend was passionate about Star Wars, it was an obsession and it gripped him completely.

I was jealous of the passion and devotion he brought to Star Wars. I recognized that many young men my age were confused as to their role in society, being caught between erosion of the family, feminism, and the objective lessons of Vietnam. They embraced the black and white in the Star Wars franchise as well as identifying the confusion between Luke and Darth Vader in which they saw something of themselves.

My friend loved Star Wars and in the dark of a theater the story of good and evil embraced him. Of all the characters, the silent Boba Fett spoke to him with much resonance. He identified with this bounty hunter from the planet Mandalore.

The Mandalorians in The Empire Strikes Back were first conceived as a group of white-armored super warriors. The idea later developed into a sole character, the bounty hunter, Boba Fett. The Mandalorian people are characterized in the Star Wars mythos as traditional warriors who often work as mercenaries and bounty hunters.

Now starting on November 12th, Disney Plus the juggernaut of streaming services is about to shine a well-deserved light on one specific Mandalorian. Set in the Star Wars universe, the series will take place five years after the demise of the Empire after the climax of Return of the Jedi and follows a Mandalorian bounty hunter into the wilds of the emerging New Republic. The creative forces behind the Disney effort are Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Lion King, and Chef), Dave Filoni (Last Airbender, Clone Wars), Kathleen Kennedy (ET, Jurassic Park). The series is starring Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Nick Nolte, Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow, Carl Weathers, Bill Burr, Omid Abtahi, Taika Waititi, and Legendary German director(why Werner why) Werner Herzog. The first series will be eight episodes long.

This is not the first time Star Wars was considered as a direct to the home product.

In 2009 work started on a proposed Star Wars television series, and by 2012, over 50 scripts had been written, but the network’s executives thougth that they were too expensive to produce. Its title was to have been Star Wars: Underworld. Following the sale of Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company, work started on the concept of a potential series. You see, Disney has had plans on the books for at least a decade to get into the streaming business. Slowly elements of the story began to be leaked including that a Boba Fett like character would be in the center of the storyline.

For a theater this arrival of a live-action Star Wars series on a streaming service is an ominous thing, it means that the lines between theaters and streaming are getting more than increasingly muddy. It should also be more than worrisome to see the impact of The Mandalorian has on the final chapter of the Skywalker tale with Star Wars Rise of Skywalker.

Houston, we have a problem, a deep problem. Walt Disney Co. is highhandedly supporting the U.S. box office this year. That doesn’t bode well for the theater industry because 2019 may be as good as it gets for Disney’s theatrical movie business. While the industry itself has seen a 10% drop (and a curiously strong September, which I attribute to bolstering streaming) Disney, which has released a blockbuster a month since March, starting with “Captain Marvel,” these tent poles drove more than a third of those ticket sales. That’s by far the biggest share the company has ever taken and that does not include the movies it gained when it bought 21st Century Fox. Is Disney purposely supporting the box office or are they paving the road for a massive release of blockbusters when Disney Plus launches? I think the later.

The North American box office is having a slow year, even as Disney cranks out blockbuster after blockbuster. Disney’s “Avengers: Endgame,” another movie shaped around the Marvel tent pole has unseated Avatar as the box office titan. Now to be fair though if ticket prices are adjusted for inflation, Endgame does not even make the top ten of movie grosses.

What is very telling is that old circuit behemoth AMC. is creating new records with its stock dropping to an all-time low earlier this year. AMC has declined 47% year to date, amid sluggish attendance at its multiplexes. Its present worth is $1.14 billion. It bought Carmike for $835 million…. yikes.

As Disney Plus launches and the streaming wars enter into a pitched battle, what will Disney do as it tries to drive market share? There are only so many resources. Money at some point infinite. It is like the battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in Return of The Jedi, the flashing lightsabers and operatic score by John Williams and sorrow at the loss of any character bad or good. Others will enter the fray, AT&T, Comcast and Apple. Slowly Hollywood will turn its eyes to the screen at home and will slowly forget the theaters.

The tentpole has fed the theaters on a marginal diet. Given the gaping maw of streaming, that might not have the bandwidth to still deal with theaters. The average ticket price fell this year for the first time since 1993, as attested to by Box Office Mojo data shows. Times have changed.

As an aside Disney has just released its full line of toys Star Wars toys and gadgets. It has a Rise of Skywalker line and a Mandalorian line, this should be more than telling

I am including a link to The Mandalorian trailer to show the care and the resources Disney has directed to its streaming efforts.

I long for the days when I sat with high school friends in a darkened theater when an Imperial Destroyer flew onto the screen. At that moment I changed, and the industry changed. The later not for the good.

And to my friend who loved Star Wars…May The Force Be With You……always