General Grievous

Not to be confused with General Grivas.

Template:SW Character General Grievous is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, an antagonist who first appears in the Cartoon Network micro-series Star Wars: Clone Wars. He was voiced by Matthew Wood. According to the Revenge of the Sith DVD, series creator George Lucas instructed his creative team to create a villain that foreshadowed Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader: the heavy breathing, the cyborg body, and his seduction into a malevolent faction.

Grievous is portrayed as the Supreme Commander of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, a political faction of planetary systems waging war on the Galactic Republic. Trained in all seven forms of lightsaber combat by Separatist leader and Sith Lord Count Dooku, he is a ruthless and powerful warrior devoted to the destruction of the Jedi, killing dozens from Padawans to Masters. The General's acts of wanton aggression and high Jedi body count would prompt the galaxy to give him the nickname 'The Knightslayer'. During the Clone Wars, he was one of the most feared, if not the most feared being in the galaxy. Though the notorious Jedi slayer was the being in the galaxy at the time of the Clone Wars who had killed the most Jedi in single combat, he was a coward at heart, and did not hesitate to flee from battles he knew were lost.

Appearances

Star Wars films

The opening crawl of Revenge of the Sith explains that Grievous and Count Dooku have captured the Supreme Chancellor Palpatine from the galactic capital Coruscant and are holding him hostage aboard Grievous's flagship, the Invisible Hand. A rescue operation conducted by Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and their droid R2-D2 results in the death of Count Dooku at the hands of Skywalker, effectively transferring command over the Separatist Council to Grievous. Grievous retreats from the battle after the Jedi infiltrate his command bridge.

Now the Republic's top priority, Grievous takes refuge on the sinkhole planet Utapau, where the Separatist Council is based. Under orders from Darth Sidious, Palpatine's alter ego, Grievous relocates the Council to the volcanic planet Mustafar, setting the stage for Darth Vader's slaughter of the Council. With Grievous's usefulness having run its course, Palpatine betrays the droid general by authorizing an invasion of Utapau under the command of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He engages Kenobi in a lightsaber duel, but being greatly weakened from injuries sustained in a fight with Mace Windu, his offense grows sloppy, which gives Kenobi an advantage in the duel. Surprised and angered at his inability to overcome Kenobi in single combat, the general took the opportunity to flee when Kenobi landed a powerful force push on him. Grievous mounted one of his wheel bikes and fled the scene towards his starfighter, with Kenobi hot on his heels. The chase ended at the general's secret hangar, where the pair fight hand to hand. Making use of his robotic body, the general has the clear advantage in the brawl and prepares to kill Kenobi, though Kenobi had managed to rip open his chestplate in the process. Using the force to pull Grievous' blaster to him, Kenobi fires five shots into the cyborg's heart, incinerating him from the inside and ending the Knightslayer's reign of terror.

Clone Wars

2003 animated series

Grievous's introduction into the Star Wars saga was the 2003 Clone Wars microseries by Genndy Tartakovsky, where he is shown as a ruthless warrior and a cunning tactician, personally defeating seven Jedi at the Battle of Hypori, making his first public appearance as the Supreme Commander. Grievous would also later initiate the mission to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine, unaware that he is Darth Sidious. Grievous battles his way through the heart of the Republic, leaving a trail of dead clones in his wake, where he finally reaches Palpatine's bunker and duels Jedi Masters Foul Moudama and Roron Corobb. After a short duel, Grievous slays them and captures Palpatine, though he is attacked by Shaak Ti. After subduing Shaak Ti, Grievous prepares to make his escape, but is confronted by Jedi Master Mace Windu. While the General prepared to confront Mace Windu in a duel, the powerful Jedi Master used the force to crush the General's chestplate, dealing a crippling blow to the cyborg. Grievous flees in his shuttle, which then sets the scene for Episode III.

2008 animated series

File:ThreeGrievousStatues.jpg

General Grievous statues from the Clone Wars episode 10 "Lair of Grievous"

Grievous is featured as a main villain in the 2008 CGI series The Clone Wars, with Matthew Wood reprising his role from the film, first appearing as the commander of the Malevolence, a large Separatist warship armed with a number of heavy ion cannons. During the course of the Clone Wars, Grievous also clashes with Kenobi aboard the Malevolence for the first time, when he chases Kenobi aboard the warship's railway system. Quick thinking on Kenobi's part allows him to land a kick on the Cyborg general's faceplate, though he swiftly recovers and engages in a blade lock with Kenobi. Kenobi breaks the blade lock and flees, though Grievous catches up to him and knocks him on his back. As Grievous prepares to deliver the deathblow, Kenobi jumps off the railjet and lands on another, saluting the general as he makes his escape. A few months later, Grievous discovers Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano infiltrating his secret listening post and seeks out to search for them. He then engages Tano and her squad of Troopers, defeating all the troopers and then engaging in a cat and mouse game with Tano. However, Tano and Skywalker still manage to destroy his listening post. Aware of his recent string of failures, Count Dooku arranges a test for the Cyborg Supreme Commander - in the form of Jedi Master Kit Fisto and Jedi Knight Nahdar Vebb. In Grievous' personal castle on the third moon of Vassek, the Jedi, along with a squad of Clone Troopers ambush Grievous, which results in the loss of Grievous' limbs. Despite escaping and receiving repairs, Grievous is advised by his medical droid to rest in light of his recent repairs. The general then duels a defiant Vebb and kills him, and declares Fisto as next. On the outskirts of Grievous' castle, the general climbs up from the ledge and unleashes four lightsabers on Fisto. Using the fog to his advantage, Fisto engages in a blade lock with Grievous and successfully cuts off one of Grievous' arms, reclaiming Vebb's lightsaber. With two lightsabers, Fisto switches to the Jar'Kai form of lightsaber combat upon the disadvantaged general who had recently undergone repairs. Though he holds his own for a time, Grievous is quickly overpowered by Fisto. Grievous calls in his Magnaguards, and an outnumbered Fisto flees. Grievous then reports this to Dooku, who informs Grievous that there is room for improvement, which frustrates the general.

After a year long absence in the series, Grievous again makes an appearance in Season 2 of the Clone Wars, where he boards a Republic Cruiser with Jedi Master Eeth Koth onboard. Grievous duels Koth, and though Koth manages to gain a very brief advantage over the general with a force push, he is subdued by the general's magnaguards. A mission to free Koth and capture Grievous initiated by Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, and Jedi Master Adi Gallia results in yet another confrontation between the Cyborg general and his nemesis Kenobi over the planet Saleucami. Though he proves to be a match for Kenobi, the Jedi Master uses the force to slam the general into a glass window using a destroyed Magnaguard. Grievous then flees, though Kenobi catches up and engages in yet another lightsaber duel with the Jedi Master in the docking tube between Grievous' ship and Kenobi's ship. Grievous exploits an opening in the Jedi Master's defense and sends him plummeting down the tube with a swift headbutt to Kenobi's chest. As Grievous prepares to seal the blast door and kill Kenobi, Adi Gallia lunges at him and engages him in a lightsaber duel. The duel is cut short when they are both sucked in by the vacuum of space, though Grievous' magnetic feet enable him to escape and subsequently enter an escape pod. On the surface of the planet Saleucami, Kenobi, desperate to capture Grievous, lunges at the unarmed general from behind, nearly ending the Cyborg's reign of terror. At the last moment, Grievous activates one of his lightsabers and clashes with Kenobi for a final time in the episode. Despite Kenobi's best efforts, the general kicks Kenobi in the chest, stunning him briefly and knocking him back a few meters. Though now presented with an opportunity to kill Kenobi, Grievous instead chooses to flee the scene and does not appear again in Season 2.

Over the course of the Clone Wars, Grievous clashes numerous times with his nemesis Kenobi. During the Battle of Kamino, Grievous once again engages Kenobi. Though he manages to disarm the Jedi Master and toss him about, Kenobi repels Grievous with a powerful force push, prompting the general to flee. Kenobi chases the general until Grievous ambushes him on the docking bays, utilizing his classic spinning, or windmilling. The duel is short lived however, as a ship crashes down on the bay and ends the fight. Later on, Grievous also commands a sabotage mission using infiltrator droids on the Galactic Senate, resulting in a deregulation of the banks. Grievous would also a face a humiliating defeat when he attempted to invade Naboo. Jar Jar Binks (posing as Gungan Boss Lyonie) distracts Grievous in a series of negotiations long enough for the Gungan Army to shut down Grievous' invasion force. As Grievous figures out Jar Jar is an imposter and chases him, Grievous realizes his army has been shut down and is surrounded by the Gungan Grand Army. Grievous scoffed at the very idea of surrender and fought the Gungan Grand Army, killing them one by one while toying with them at the same time, fighting sloppily. At that moment, general Tarpals of the Gungan Grand Army intervenes and engages Grievous in a duel, while disarming Grievous of one saber in the process. Though a seasoned warrior, Tarpals is severely outclassed by the Supreme Commander and Jedi Slayer, who stabs Tarpals with a spear taken from a fallen Gungan. Grievous momentarily lets his guard down and proceeds to question Tarpals on how it felt to die. With the last of his breath however, Tarpals impales Grievous through his chest, allowing the Gungan Army to bombard the stunned fatally wounded general with energized projectiles and capture him. His captivity would not last long however, as he is freed in a prisoner exchange with Anakin Skywalker between Count Dooku and Padme Amidala. After being freed, Grievous would also attack Jedi Master Adi Gallia's ship, where he engages her in a lightsaber duel down a narrow hall way. The duel ended when Grievous kicked Gallia square in the chest, sending her flying across the hallway and subsequently capturing her. Shortly after, Adi Gallia would escape Grievous' custody when a strike force led by Jedi Master Plo Koon boarded his ship and freed the Jedi Master, prompting the cyborg general to flee.

Grievous is next seen in the Clone Wars Season 4 'Battle Lines' trailer, armed with all four lightsabers preparing to confront Asajj Ventress and her battalion of nightsisters.

Star Wars literature

Grievous made his first appearance in the comics in a short story in Star Wars: Visionaries called The Eyes of Revolution. This story reveals that Grievous was once Kaleesh general Qymaen jai Sheelal, a fierce warrior engaged in a brutal war with the rival planet Huk. Greivous has had many wives. One that he is currently married to Gravlyn, a human. He boards a shuttle to take him to another battle, unaware that Dooku had planted an explosive device in it. He is later reconstructed following the shuttle explosion, taken into the Separatist cause by Dooku.

In the third volume of Clone Wars Adventures: Volume 3, it is also revealed how General Grievous attained his rank of Supreme Commander, by dueling the Dark Acolyte Asajj Ventress and Durge simultaneously. On board the Trenchant space station, Ventress and Durge are ordered by Dooku to search for an unknown intruder, with the pair unaware of the Count's intentions. Armed with an electrostaff, Grievous appears from behind and electrocutes Durge, and subsequently throws him across the hallway through a few trophies. Ventress jumps onto a chandoleer and attempts to search for Grievous but is instead knocked off by the Cyborg, who is caught by Durge. The pair then confronted the general face to face, with Ventress unleashing her lightsabers and Durge unleashing his full arsenal. Grievous was able to knock Ventress away, though Durge sent the Cyborg flying across the room into a wall with a powerful punch to the face. Far from defeated, the general unleashed his lightsabers, swiftly defeating the pair. In the wake of the battle, Grievous was made the Supreme Commander of the Confederacy's military.

Grievous starred in his own comic called Star Wars: General Grievous, in which he fights Jedi master T'chooka D'oon and padawan Flyn. After Grievous kills D'oon, Kybo return to the Jedi council with a plan to destroy the general once and for all. When the council rebukes his vengeful plan, Kybo decides to take this matter into own hands, with disastrous results. Grievous makes his last appearance in the comics in Star Wars: Obsession issue number 4, in which he is on the world of Boz Pity where he kills two Jedi, Master Soon Bayts and Jedi Council member Adi Gallia. Though Grievous is subdued by Mace Windu, Count Dooku is able to save him so he may fight another day.

In the Episode III prequel novel Labyrinth of Evil, Grievous plans an invasion of Coruscant alongside Count Dooku and Darth Sidious. He first appears in the novel watching his hated subordinate Nute Gunray flee from a pursuant Republic Strike Force. Though Grievous considers letting the Republic Fighters achieve their kill, he saves Gunray by destroying the fighters. Grievous' invasion of the planet Belderone would also be thwarted by Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, due to a careless mistake on Gunray's part. Though Gunray resorts to lies, the cyborg general is able to deduce that the Neimoidian is lying and threatens him with death. Later, on the bridge of the Invisible Hand, Dooku watches as the General spars his elite Magnaguards. Though Grievous disarms his Magnaguards, Dooku points out several flaws in the general's technique, while realizing he is partly to blame for the general's inadequacies. Grievous would soon launch his invasion on the Republic capital of Coruscant in an attempt to kidnap Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, placing himself on the battlefield once again. In one instance, the cyborg general was so bold that he pried open the maglev train with Palpatine, Mace Windu, and Kit Fisto onboard. While Fisto dueled two of the general's magnaguards on board the train, the Knight Slayer dueled the esteemed Jedi Master on the roof of the train. Literally glued to the ground by an unknown magnetic force and unfamiliar with Windu's unique style of lightsaber combat 'Vaapad', Grievous would attempt to imitate Windu's style of combat. The result was what Windu considered a fairly impressive version of Vaapad. The battle is a brief but intense one, with both combatants at each other's throats. Though Windu was unable to outspar the general, he would defeat the notorious cyborg by force pushing him off the train. As it turned out, Grievous survived, and continued his pursuit of Palpatine once again. Entering Palpatine's secret bunker, the general quickly slaughtered all four Jedi that were acting as Palpatine's bodyguards. With Palpatine in his grasp, Grievous fled Coruscant and flew through the heart of the space battle to reach his flagship, where he battled two pursuant Jedi Knights and killed them in a brief duel.

Video games

General Grievous has appeared in several video games, notably, Star Wars: Battlefront II, Star Wars: Republic Commando, and the Revenge of the Sith video game.

Grievous next appears in the video game Star Wars Galaxies. Following the establishment of the Galactic Empire, stormtroopers take Grievous' living head, and place it in his body, transforming him to a droid. This war droid has a brief life in the Myyydril Caverns on Kashyyyk before being destroyed by an anonymous group of spacers. The combatants loot the droid's remains, taking its weaponry and anything else of value. The facemask ends up on the Invisible Market, where it is purchased for its artistic properties by a high-ranking Imperial admiral — purported to be none other than Grand Admiral Thrawn. General Grievous also makes a very brief appearance in Star Wars: Republic Commando, when Delta Squad almost catches him boarding his starship to an "unknown" planet. Earlier, on Geonosis, after killing Sun Fac, a ship looking similar to Grievous' flies away. The squad notes the ship as not being Geonosian. Grievous makes his next appearance in Lego Star Wars and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, featured as a boss and an unlockable, playable character in free play mode. He is also playable in free play mode in Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy by accessing a save file of Lego Star Wars.

General Grievous appears as a playable character in Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Lightsaber Duels, released for the Nintendo Wii on November 11, 2008. General Grievous also appears as a playable character in Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron, released for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and Nintendo DS on November 3, 2009. Unlike Star Wars: Battlefront II, in the DS version, he can use his four arms at the cost of force points instead of just two at the end of an attack.

Behind the scenes

General Grievous was developed for Episode III as a powerful new villain on the side of the Separatists. The initial instructions that director George Lucas gave the Art Department were very open-ended: "a droid general". From that vague direction, the artists developed a lot of explorations, some purely mechanical, some not, for Grievous' look.

The initial design for General Grievous was created by Warren Fu as a design for the Magnaguard. That initial sketch was refined and made into a 1-foot (30 cm)-tall maquette sculpture. That was further refined when it was made into a realistic computer-generated model by Industrial Light & Magic. At the time, this was one of the most complicated models ever created by ILM, with many parts of differing physical qualities. General Grievous is completely computer-generated imagery in the movie. On set, Duncan Young read the lines off-screen, while Kyle Rowling wore a bluescreen or a greenscreen suit to act out the fights with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Also notable are the numerous contradictions between the expanded universe and the current Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV series. In the Clone Wars, Grievous is depicted as having 4 fingers per arm, whereas in the original Star Wars: Clone Wars cartoon, the general is depicted as having 5. Whereas the General Grievous of Star Wars: Clone Wars was fast, acrobatic, and powerful, the current General Grievous is depicted as slow, dim, and incompetent. Furthermore, his asthmatic cough and hunchbacked stance are already present despite having not gained them prior to his confrontation with Mace Windu. The constant 'retconning' of expanded universe and original content at the hands of Star Wars: The Clone Wars has sparked outrage among the fan base, for example the fact that Grievous has not won a single battle of any type Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The general's back story has also been changed by supervising director Dave Filoni, who stated that Grievous opted for surgery in order to gain powers that would allow him to rival a Jedi Knight. This is reinforced by the tenth episode of Season 1, 'Lair of Grievous', which suggested the general's transformation into a cyborg was a gradual process.

Movie notes

General Grievous' asthmatic cough in Revenge of the Sith was intended to emphasize his organic nature as well as the flaws of cyborg prosthetics. Grievous had previously appeared in Clone Wars before many of his personality traits had been finalized. To reconcile the differences between the two presentations, Mace Windu uses the Force to crush Grievous' chest panel towards the end of the show's third season (Volume Two) as the general makes a desperate escape with Palpatine. Some of the audio effects for the coughing were taken from Lucas himself, who had bronchitis during principal photography.

Portrayal

General Grievous has been played by several actors. In the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series, the character was played by voice actor John DiMaggio in Chapter 20 (the Season 2 finale episode). The role of General Grievous was assigned to Richard McGonagle for Chapters 21–25 of Season 3. In the feature film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, General Grievous was dubbed by actor and sound editor Matthew Wood. Wood also plays Grievous in the animated series The Clone Wars as well as for all of Grievous' video game appearances. Wood's portrayal gives Grievous a Russian accent. Gary Oldman, a friend of producer Rick McCallum, agreed to submit a voice audition, but his involvement never went beyond that. For several months following Oldman's reported (but never confirmed) refusal, actor John Rhys-Davies was widely reported to be the voice of Grievous. This was eventually revealed to be a prank by a humor website, which planted the misinformation to see how far it would spread.

Lucasfilm audio lead and actor David W. Collins portrays General Grievous in the video games Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron and Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron.

External links

• General Grievous in the StarWars.com Databank
• Grievous on Wookieepedia, a Star Wars wiki
• Template:Imdb character