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 feature film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. 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 a cyborg general leading the droid armies of the Separatists, a political faction of planetary systems waging war on the Galactic Republic. Trained in lightsaber combat by Separatist leader Count Dooku, he is a ruthless warrior devoted to the destruction of the Jedi, killing several of them and collecting their lightsabers as trophies.

Appearances

Star Wars films

The opening crawl of Revenge of the Sith explains that Grievous and Count Dooku have abducted 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. Following a lightsaber duel with Kenobi and a subsequent chase through the streets on a "wheelbike", Kenobi fires five blaster shots into Grievous's "organ sac" beneath his chestplate, incinerating his inner organs. His remains were then collected by droids.

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 and cunning tactician, taking on five Jedi at once and holding his own at the Battle of Hypori, his first duty as a Separatist general. The depleting number of Jedi caused by Grievous's surfacing contributes to the Jedi Council's early knighting of Anakin Skywalker. Later, he is given command by Darth Sidious and Count Dooku over the Separatist's invasion of Coruscant, where he abducts Chancellor Palpatine (unaware he is actually Darth Sidious) and sets the stage for the opening of Revenge of the Sith.

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 superweapon armed with a number of heavy ion cannons. Grievous's various wartime campaigns include an invasion of the clone army's home planet Kamino, the capture of noted Jedi Master Eeth Koth, and a confrontation in his private castle with the Jedi Council member Kit Fisto, as part of a trap laid out by Count Dooku to test his prowess in combat.

In contradiction to earlier sources depicting a gruesome shuttle crash and subsequent reconstruction, Grievous suggests in the animated series that he opted for surgery and reconstruction because he desired to be a Jedi. Statues in Grievous's palace depicting the transformation suggest the process occurred gradually, with more and more of Grievous's humanity being taken away with each new cybernetic enhancement.

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. 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.

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.

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 recover Grievous' body, transporting it and his captured starfighter to one of Palpatine's secret storehouses on Utapau. There it remains for years, until the cyberneticist Nycolai Kinesworthy uses Grievous' body for the N-K Project, to create the highly advanced droid N-K Necrosis. 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. 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.

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