Entertainment Weekly: New Info on Benicio Del Toro’s “DJ” Character Revealed and More!
Since production began on The Last Jedi all of us have been wondering what part Oscar-winner Benicio Del Toro would be playing. Is he Ezra Bridger (of course not)? Is he a Knight of Ren? Or maybe, just maybe, he’s a completely new character (GASP). After learning his name in the June issue of Vanity Fair, we finally have some more information in The Last Jedi spread in EW this week.
Del Toro has flip-flopped a bit when it comes to the intentions the character. When first asked about the role he said he was playing a villainous role only to change his story a bit later saying that his intentions and loyalties were unclear.
The latter seems to be the case in The Last Jedi and Lucasfilm gives a quote that perfectly encapsulates the character, saying
DJ is an enigmatic figure whose tattered, threadbare clothes and lackadaisical attitude conceal a sharp mind and expert skills.
But how does he fit into the narrative of the film? I’ll let EW tell you.
DJ is part of the mission that John Boyega’s Finn and Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose undertake to the wealthy, gambling resort city of Canto Bight. But … do they bring him there? Do they capture him there? Do they free him there?
Finn and Rose need the Star Wars equivalent of a hacker, known as a slicer for the mission and that’s where DJ fits in. What exactly they need to slice or what else DJ may do is still unclear and we’re going to have to wait for December 15th to see the full story.
From this and pretty much everything the actors and director is saying about the film, the line between good and evil is going to be a bit blurred in The Last Jedi. Having characters like DJ and not knowing where their loyalties lie are going to be a nice change of pace from the usual black and white morality of the Star Wars universe.
Finally one of the most interesting parts of the article is hearing Kelly Marie Tran describe what it was like to work with Del Toro when they were on set and when he was in character.
When I was onset with that character, I felt like there was a tiger in the room, and I always had to be watching,” she says. “Like an animal, at any moment he could do something, and I didn’t know what.
He embodies that underbelly that everybody loves in Star Wars. Canto Bight is the perfect place to see him work and I could not be more excited to see how Del Toro will bring the character to life.
You can watch Breznican’s video on DJ below:
Source: Entertainment Weekly
blurry… Lando…
Yeah, good call. Obviously Lando was a similarly ambiguous type of character back in 1980, so it has been done in Star Wars before.
I love the idea of trying to portray a hacker in the Star Wars universe. Maybe it’s been done in the EU: having only read a handful of novels and a bunch of comics, I wouldn’t know. But it certainly means an expansion of the universe as portrayed on film…
Yes, it’s in the EU. The Zahn trilogy had a slicer named Ghent
Ok Lucasfilm you’ve had your fun, now drop teaser trailer #2 already.
Real trailer in Oct.
Yup, full trailer mid-October, but teaser #2 must be imminent.
There won’t be a second teaser. TFA had two teasers only bc of the Black Friday one was a bonus.
Rogue One had two also.
Yes, but Rogue One was slightly different in that it wasn’t a saga film and was this new thing. They probably felt they needed to do a little bit more than normal.
That second teaser came in June with the full trailer in October (same as TFA). I don’t see a second teaser coming now, in August and then again in October. But we will see.
But when looking at the future for TLJ, I look at the past of TFA, not Rogue One. Time will tell if I am right. I could be wrong!
The Rogue One timeline was:
Teaser #1: April 11th
BTS: July 15th
Teaser #2: August 11th
Full Trailer: October 13th
TV Spots: End of November
The Last Jedi has been:
Teaser #1: April 14th
BTS: July 15th
So far, The Last Jedi has closely mirrored the Rogue One Timeline. That’s the reason I still believe they’ll be a second teaser trailer, and if I’m right will be dropping anytime now.
Hmm, I was mistaken about the date of the second teaser. Well, we shall see soon!
Bah – keep the trailers to an ABSOLUTE minimum, PLEASE! It would be nice to not be going into this film the way we did TFA; everyone already knowing the broad outline of the story and characters. Surprise me.
Yes, but it’s nice to have the autonomy to choose whether to immerse yourself in the marketing campaign or not. I knew pretty much everything to know about TFA before seeing the movie. Didn’t spoil the experience for me.
I was actually surprised how much of the leaked info turned out to be true first viewing. It was kind of sad.
Odds are high that this is the most interesting character of TLJ… outside of that farmboy from Tatooine of course
The new version of the Lando character.
Lando was a scummy slicer??
The self-interested character, whose motives we’re not clear on until he sells out our heroes, only to have a change of heart forced upon him when that very decision bites him in the ass, and who then chooses to throw his lot in with them? You’re thinking window dressing, not story function.
No I am talking about the stuff I know about him. You are talking about stuff you think he will do. I do not know what his story function is. So what I know for sure about DJ is not like Lando at all.
So…Han…sort of.
Will we finally get a Slicer in a SW film?
Oh wait, I found the actual video on the EW site, and DJ will indeed be a Slicer! (They call it a “code breaker”.) Excellent!
Link: http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/10/the-last-jedi-new-details-on-benicio-del-toros-devious-character/?utm_campaign=entertainmentweekly&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=entertainment-weekly_socialflow_twitter
I thought Justin Theroux was playing a slicer character. Or, is he still in TLJ? (Perhaps del Toro got the role and Theroux was considered for it.)
He is in it. Rumors are often fluid and confusing.
I thought I read somewhere that Justin Theroux is a Slicer working for the First Order. Benicio Del Toro’s character could be hired to work for the resistance. I could be totaly wrong though.
Why do they need human / alien “hackers” or “slicers” in the Star Wars universe? They have droids. R2 did all the “hacking” in the previous movies. Why can’t Finn and Rose just use a droid?
Hopefully this will be explained. Could be a simple explanation that a certain protocol prevents droids from interfacing with it. Lame as it may sound.
Maybe you should watch the movie.
“If droids could think, there’d be none of us here, would there?” -Obi-Wan Kenobi
Maybe they have re captcha. https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/images/hero-recaptcha-demo.gif
Where are all the haters who kept saying Rose was the worst thing in the film?
I sincerely hope that, whatever Finn and Rose are looking for in Canto Bight, it really makes a difference in the war against the First Order and is meaningful to the overall plot. I don’t want Finn to have only filler action scenes that could be edited out without any significant impact on the main themes of the movie.