General Grievous
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| Star Wars character | |
| Qymaen jai Sheelal (birth name) General Grievous (assumed name) | |
|---|---|
| Image:Gre.jpeg
| |
| Position | Supreme Commander of the Confederacy's Droid armies, Replacement Head of State |
| Homeworld | Kalee |
| Species | Kaleesh (cyborg) |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 7'1" |
| Affiliation | Confederacy of Independent Systems |
| Portrayed by | John Di Maggio, Richard McGonagle (voice in Star Wars: Clone Wars) Matthew Wood (voice in Revenge of the Sith) |
General Grievous (born Qymaen jai Sheelal) is a fictional character from the Star Wars universe. He first appeared in the Expanded Universe, although he soon appeared in a film as well. Although he was voiced by John DiMaggio in Chapter 20 of Cartoon Network's animated series Star Wars: Clone Wars, Richard McGonagle took over the voicing of Grievous for the rest of the micro series, and Matthew Wood voiced Grievous in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Dark Horse Comics began publishing a four-part comic book about General Grievous in March 2005.
General Grievous is one of the most skilled warriors ever. He is highly trained in all forms of lightsaber combat, as well as mastery in his own style, as he has four arms, making him almost invincible. He is also an incredibly high-trained fighter and warrior. Grievous is also highly trained with an electrostaff.
He is a general of the Confederacy of Independent Systems' army and an enemy of the Republic, especially the Jedi. Though a member of the Kaleesh species, his physical body is a fusion of a powerful robotic structure and an organic brain, nervous system and sensory organs.
Grievous was a Jedi hunter, killing them for sport and collecting their lightsabers to proudly place around his belt as trophies and use them in his battles. He possessed strategic ingenuity and flawless cunning. He was a general in the Separatist army and became their leader upon Count Dooku's death at the hands of Anakin Skywalker.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Transformation into a cyborg
General Grievous was originally a warlord on his native planet Kalee. During those days, he was highly respected as a leader and a husband to many wives as well as a father to many children.
The Kaleesh had conquered the land and seas of their planet, and displayed pride in their superiority by wearing masks cobbled from the bones of their most feared animals, the mumuu and the Karabbac. Warrior families would hand down these bone masks from generation to generation, adorning it with fresh blood prior to every hunt or campaign. Grievous wore such a mask in his battle against the hated Huks, a neighboring species. He weathered countless close calls as he unleashed destruction on Kalee's enemies. He would return home to his wives and offspring, bloodied but emboldened, ready for battle again.[1]
During the war with the rival Huk worlds, the Galactic Republic was called in to settle the dispute. Because the Huk were rich in resources compared to the barren Kalee world, the Republic sided with the Huk and sent several Jedi Knights to attack the Kaleesh. Grievous and his armies were defeated and his homeworld was left in ruins, to suffer in poverty and shame of defeat. Grievous lost everything he held dear.
During these extremely harsh times, Grievous became a security chief for the Intergalactic Banking Clan. San Hill, leader of the Clan, noticed that Grievous was both a brilliant strategist and an excellent fighter, and mentioned him to the Confederacy of Independent Systems leader, Count Dooku (secretly the Sith Lord Darth Tyranus). Led by Darth Sidious, the Sith Lords conspired to draw Grievous into the Separatist army. Despite Hill's generous offers, however, Grievous refused to lead the Separatist army.
Sidious, Dooku, and Hill arranged to have a bomb planted on the shuttle Grievous was on, and to blame it on the Republic. Grievous was mortally wounded in the crash, kept alive by Dooku's dark side powers; and his shattered, dying body was taken to the planet Geonosis, where most of it was replaced with a droid body forged by Geonosians that would complement his natural reflexes. After much resistance from the still-conscious Grievous - a warrior of his status, he felt, should die on the field of battle - the metamorphosis was complete.
The suit, built of Durasteel and armorplast-plated Duranium, was built to resemble Krath war droids. His armorplast plates were strong enough to stop a bolt from even a starfighter's laser cannon. Each human-sized hand had four fingers and two opposable thumbs (three digits to each half-arm when they split to produce four arms.) His hands and feet were capable of magnetizing when needed, allowing him to grip on to surfaces with incredible strength, even in zero gravity. His feet also could work perfectly well as hands, and in the Clone Wars TV series, he was seen to have killed/incapacitated a Jedi by grabbing the Jedi's head with his foot and brutally smashing it into the ground. His legs were digitigrade (see CloneWar photo). His body was able to move in a seemingly unlimited number of unnatural ways with the twisting and alien movements of his body, almost exclusively to his unorthodox fighting style, this was perhaps exaggerated in the Clone Wars miniseries that depicted him with the ability to transform in almost unlimited ways, too. His internal organs were enclosed in a layer of pressurized synthflesh with an organic fluid to prevent the organs from being damaged by bacteria and harmful germs, and also to maintain a suitable temperature to keep his organs alive and functional. His organs were nourished by artificial arteries keeping them alive with blood from another Kaleesh subject, allowing him to survive in a vacuum (in space, for example), an advantage he would display in escaping from Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker on his flagship. This transformation, when combined with his ruthlessness as a warlord, turned him from a courageous, generous leader into an implacable killing machine, incapable of any emotion other than blood-lust and anger.
Grievous had a newfound rage at the Republic that had destroyed his homeworld, as well as (he believed) caused his shuttle crash, destroying his body. This, coupled with the feeling of gratitude toward the Separatists for saving his life, and the modifications that Banking Clan scientists made to his brain while he was unconscious made him more than willing to take up Hill's offer and agree to lead the Separatist troops throughout the galaxy against the Republic.
[edit] The Clone Wars
During the Clone Wars, Grievous was particularly enraged toward the Jedi; he made it a personal goal to hunt them down and humiliate each Jedi by defeating them and keeping their lightsabers as his personal prize. Grievous resented the Jedi having sided with the Huk in the earlier wars. Although the bio-droid general was completely incapable of using the Force, he instead relied on his skills as augmented by his lightning fast reflexes and the multi-jointed limbs of his mechanical body. In addition to his bodily modifications, General Grievous was trained in lightsaber combat by Count Dooku. Although Dooku detested the cyborg military leader, Grievous still became his right hand man, and as such not only learned his secret identity (Darth Tyranus), but became second only to the Sith (Darth Tyranus & Darth Sidious) in the chain of command of the Clone Wars. He became the Supreme Commander of the Droid Army only after Count Dooku pit him against Asajj Ventress and Durge to decide which of his servants would take up the military command of the Confederate Droid Armies. Grievous easily defeated the two others.
General Grievous was active from the very beginning of the Clone Wars. His existence was kept secret, however, since no Jedi had escaped his presence alive. He was inside the catacombs of Geonosis during the Battle of Geonosis. It was there that he would kill his first Jedi, although the exact numbers are not known. It was his rear-guard actions in the catacombs against the clone troopers and Jedi that would allow Nute Gunray and the rest of the Separatist leadership to flee with their lives. The Jedi who would later find their dead comrades thought that perhaps it was a wild animal that had torn them apart. They found it unusual, however, that all of the dead Jedi were missing their lightsabers.
Grievous first revealed himself to the public when he attacked and dispatched a team of seven Jedi Knights in an aggressive display of lightsaber mastery during the Battle of Hypori. With his mechanical enhancements and attributes combined, he was able to battle five Jedi single-handedly. Only three survived the onslaught, with a fourth later recovered. The Separatist general began the swift conquest of several Outer Rim planets, much to the dismay of the Republic. Time after time, Grievous's ability to strategize attack plans with brilliant ideas and destructive results made the Republic's star fleet commanders fearful of his abilities and talents. Grievous led the assault into the inner systems, along the Corellian Trade Spine, conquering world after world.
The General would go on to best many other Jedi Knights and Masters with his swordsmanship. Jedi Master Mace Windu battled him, and the match ended in a stalemate. Additionally, sophisticated computers attached to Grievous' organic brain assisted the cyborg in perceiving patterns within his opponents attacks. They would then suggest that Grievous alter his stance and posture, along with the angle of his parries, ripostes, and thrusts accordingly. However, within Grievous's impenetrable defense, Windu was able to discern a single shatterpoint: a lack of appreciation for simplicity. It was for this reason that Windu supported the decision to allow Obi-Wan Kenobi, with his direct and no-frills saber style, to apprehend the General on Utapau.
[edit] Battle of Coruscant
Grievous would later resurface during the Battle of Coruscant, using the first wave of his attack as a distraction to kidnap Chancellor Palpatine (who, unbeknownst to Grievous, was Sidious in his civilian disguise). In the process, he pursued Palpatine all the way from his office through the Skyline of Coruscant (on the back of a nearby transport) through the Coruscant Subway System, and finally into Palpatine's private bunker. Grievous became frustrated in the pursuit because even though Grievous had the help of his MagnaGuards and he had quickly dispatched a squad of Palpatine's private guards and clone troopers, he had some difficulty chasing and destroying Palpatine's entourage of Jedi consisting of Jedi Masters Shaak Ti and Roron Corobb, and a Jedi Knight, Foul Moudama (as they used the Force to buy time to run, for they had no wish to fight him). Grievous finally snuck into Palpatine's Bunker and slew Corobb and Moudama (during this battle we see Grievous separate his four arms for the first time) after distracting Shaak-Ti with his MagnaGuards. By the time she realized it was a distraction and retreated it was too late, and Grievous wrapped Shaak-Ti in an electric cord. Grievous responded that if the Republic fleet did not allow his forces to escape, he would execute Palpatine live on the HoloNet. Mace Windu comes to the rescue after he and Yoda had sensed that the attack on the city was a distraction, and came up as General Grievous was escaping with his prize, but not before Windu performed a Force Crush on Grievous' chest plates. This attack left him with the wheezing cough heard in Revenge of the Sith.
Subsequently, Grievous was cornered by Kenobi and Skywalker onboard his vessel, the Invisible Hand. Skywalker and Kenobi were taken prisoner, but escaped and confronted Grievous. Once the cyborg realized that he was cornered, he cleverly escaped by smashing a window on the ship and allowing himself to be sucked into the vacuum of near space, after which he subsequently used his magnetized feet to scale the hull of his fallen flagship to the escape pods, where he ejected the pod containing himself as well as all the other escape pods. This, he knew, would keep the Jedi on board as the ship made its fall through the atmosphere.
[edit] Escape to Utapau
Grievous directed his escaped pod to the nearest droid control ship, where he ordered his forces to flee and himself managed to get a transport to take him to the planet Utapau. It was here that the separatist council resided, and with Count Dooku dead, Grievous was now the leader of the Droid Armies. He communicated with Sidious, still oblivious to his true identity, as soon as he arrived on Utapau. He was ordered by Sidious to move the Separatist Leaders to the fiery planet of Mustafar, and also to prepare for Obi-Wan Kenobi's imminent arrival. His stamina continued to weaken during his stay on Utapau, ever since the encounter with Mace Windu on Coruscant. Moments before Kenobi's arrival, Grievous dismisses the Separatist Council. A spying General Kenobi decides to focus on Grievous rather than the well-protected Council.
[edit] Battle of Utapau
On Utapau, Grievous was ambushed by Kenobi. Still injured from his encounter with Windu, Grievous showed his four arms and engaged Kenobi in combat, but Grievous lost two of his hands, and then lost his other two lightsabers when Kenobi used a Force Push on him. Grievous then knew that he was too weak to take on Kenobi in his full fury, so he attempted to flee. Kenobi pursued Grievous as scores of battle droids and clone troopers clashed around them. The pair engaged in a desperate bout of hand-to-hand combat as Grievous attempted to flee in his personal wheel-bike transport. Grievous was cornered on his landing platform, and he retaliated with anger and rage. Grievous, being made mostly of hard durasteel, fared more than well against Kenobi's humanoid body. However, Kenobi was able to expose Grievous' internal organs by opening his chestplates, and destroyed them with a few "uncivilized" but well-placed blaster bolts, igniting the flammable substances in his organ jar and destroying him.
[edit] Fall of the Republic
Unbeknownst to Kenobi, however, Palpatine had corrupted Skywalker into his new apprentice, Darth Vader, and instituted Order 66, a command to all clone troopers to turn on and kill their Jedi generals. The resulting purge ended in the murders of essentially all Jedi (except notably Kenobi, Yoda, and a few others). All of this may not have been possible without Grievous' efforts on behalf of the Separatists, which Palpatine used to gradually solidify his power and erase nearly all opposition.
[edit] Trivia
[edit] MagnaGuards
Grievous traveled with his droid bodyguards, a set of IG-100 series MagnaGuards, who wielded electrostaffs made of phrik alloy, which could defend against most weapons, including lightsabers. This is the first time Star Wars fans have seen a non-lightsaber weapon that can withstand the cutting power of a lightsaber itself in a movie (an expanded universe substance called cortosis also exists). These Magna guards appear to be able to attack and defend themselves even though they have been dismembered (as seen in Revenge of the Sith when Obi-Wan cut off the head and the droid still stood and fought).
[edit] Fighting technique
Not only could he produce an extra pair of arms, he could use his feet as hands. His unorthodox moves mainly involved misdirection with his many limbs, something only the most experienced and talented of Jedi could withstand. Much of this misdirection involved releasing a lightsaber from one limb and catching it with another, sometimes even while two other limbs are performing the same trick. The opponent, focused on limbs which are no longer dangerous, was then struck. In addition, his hands and torso are able to spin in a 360 degree motion. A Jedi master of offensive lightsaber training could only last so long against the General's unpredictable style of combat. The Clone Wars animated series also clearly displayed the anxiety Grievous creates for the Jedi both with his stealth tactics and relentless, unforgiving technique with a lightsaber. As shown in Revenge of the Sith, Grievous is a dangerous adversary in unarmed combat as well- putting a dent in a Droid Strike Bomber with his fist.
[edit] Weakness
Grievous' only recognized weakness in battle was his inability to use the Force. He was not a Jedi or a Sith, and because of his lack of midi-chlorians (the building-blocks within the body that enables the wielder to use the Force), he had no Force wielding capabilities. His lightsaber style was only enhanced by his experienced fighting techniques, the computers connected to his brain, and the lightsaber fighting styles taught by Dooku. Unlike the Jedi and Sith, Grievous could not use the Force to guide his lightsaber or to foresee potential dangers in a duel. But this may be contradicted by rumors of Grievous having had a blood transfusion from the body of Sifo-Dyas during his reconstruction. Had this been the case, Grievous may have developed Force powers, possibly creating one of the deadliest foes the Jedi were liable to encounter.
It should also be noted that Grievous was seriously injured by Mace Windu as he tried to escape with Chancellor Palpatine during the Clone Wars, leaving him permanently weaker and unable to defeat Jedi as easily and flawlessly as he did during his rise in the clone wars. Windu used the force to crush Grievous's chest cavity which gave him that asthmatic cough.
Grievous' only physical vulnerability, exploited in combat by Obi-Wan Kenobi, was the presence of his remaining biological organs contained within his torso, that could be attacked by forcing one's way through Grievous' chestplate.
In the Battle of Hypori, the Knights facing Grievous started to use the Force to project items towards the General as to avoid lightsaber combat. Grievous had no problem deflecting and dodging the projectiles, but the Knights noticed the General's lack of response; he wasn't trying to hit them from afar with projectiles.
[edit] Relationship with Viceroy Gunray
It was Viceroy Nute Gunray who paid the highly expensive cost of rebuilding General Grievous, and when the Viceroy was first introduced to the General he made the mistake of treating him as just another long line of officer droids. To say that Grievous resented this would be an understatement...Gunray's mistake very nearly cost him his life at the claws of the General. Gunray opposed Grievous shortly before the Battle of Utapau, making note of the escape of Chancellor Palpatine and the death of Count Dooku, and informing the General that he doubted his ability to keep the council safe. Grievous quickly dismissed Gunray and sent him to Mustafar. Ironically, Gunray outlived Grievous (though not by long).
The Invisible Hand, General Grievous' command ship, was originally intended for Viceroy Nute Gunray's use. However, Count Dooku gave the ship to Grievous, adding to the hostility between the General and the Viceroy.
[edit] Jedi kills and trophies
- Adi Gallia—female human killed on Boz Pity in "Obsession" (In the George Lucas version of Star Wars, it is Stass Allie, not Adi Gallia, who dies under gunfire of her own Clone Troopers when they were ordered to turn against her upon receiving Order 66)
- B'dard Tone—male Coway killed on Belsus in General Grievous
- B'ink Utrila—female Twi'lek killed on Coruscant in Labyrinth of Evil
- Daakman Barrek—male human killed on Hypori in Clone Wars Volume 1
- K'Kruhk—male Whiphid killed on Hypori in Clone Wars Volume 1
- Firkrann—male Shard killed on Xagobah
- Flint Torul—male human killed over Belderone
- Flynn Kybo—male human killed on Belsus in General Grievous
- Foul Moudama—male Talz killed on Coruscant in Clone Wars Volume 2 and Labyrinth of Evil
- Jmmaar—male Viraanntesse killed on Vandos
- L'lacielo Sageon—male Lorrdian killed over Coruscant in Labyrinth of Evil
- Nystammall—male Vuvrian killed on Tovarskl
- Pablo-Jill—male Ongree killed over Coruscant in Labyrinth of Evil
- Quarmall—male Abyssin killed in General Grievous
- Puroth—female Eirrauc killed on Tovarskl
- Roron Corobb—male Ithorian killed on Coruscant in Clone Wars Volume 2 and Labyrinth of Evil
- Roth-Del Masona—male human killed on Coruscant in Labyrinth of Evil
- Sha'a Gi—male human killed on Hypori in Clone Wars Volume 1
- Soon Baytes—male human killed on Boz Pity in Obsession
- Tarr Seirr—male Cerean killed on Hypori in Clone Wars Volume 1
- T'chooka D'oon—male human killed on Vandos in General Grievous
- Ur-Sema Du—female human killed on Geonosis
- Waldan Bridger—male human killed on Togoria
- Zephata'ru'tor—male Duinuogwuin killed over Nadiem
Aside from these individuals, Grievous's collection was known to include lightsabers belonging to at least four beings he did not personally kill: Shaak Ti (though in the deleted scenes from Revenge of the Sith, he impales her on her own lightsaber), K'Kruhk, Sifo-Dyas, and Darth Zannah.
[edit] Behind the scenes
General Grievous was developed for Episode III as a powerful new villain on the side of the Confederacy. 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 General Grievous' look.
The initial design for General Grievous was done by Warren Fu. That initial sketch was refined and made into a foot-tall maquette sculpture. That was further refined when it was made in to a realistic computer-generated model by Industrial Light and Magic. 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.
[edit] Movie notes
- Gary Oldman originally agreed to provide the voice for Grievous in the film. He later pulled out because the film featured actors who are not part of the Screen Actors Guild, of which Oldman is a member. This report is disputed by Matthew Wood, who provided the final voice. He claims that Oldman is a friend of producer Rick McCallum, and agreed to submit a voice audition, but that his involvement never went beyond that. Lucas never officially offered him the role.
- General Grievous' breathing problems in Revenge of the Sith were intended to emphasize his organic nature as well as the flaws of cyborg prosthetics. Grievous had previously appeared in Star Wars: Clone Wars before many of his personality traits had been finalized. To reconcile the differences between the two presentations, Mace Windu "force-crushes" Grievous towards the end of the show's third season (volume two) as the General was making off with Palpatine, crushing the cyborg's chest panel. This explains why General Grievous' voice is lighter in the Clone Wars series and then deepens dramitically in the movie, although the actual explanation is that the two were portrayed by different voices. The audio effects for the coughing were taken from Lucas, who had bronchitis during principal photography.<ref name="DVDcom"> Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith DVD commentary featuring George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Rob Coleman, John Knoll and Roger Guyett, [2005]</ref>
[edit] Trivia
- The original concept for General Grievous' appearance came from looking down on the top of the head of a household spray bottle.
- When introduced to the general public in Chapter 20 of the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series, Grievous has ten fingers, while in Revenge of the Sith, he has twelve (four are opposable thumbs so that he may hold four lightsabers when he separates his arms). This happened because Lucas used the cartoon to introduce Grievous sometime before his actions in Revenge of the Sith were fully worked out, and so he did not know what Grievous would be doing or that he would have four arms. In the second season of the cartoon he still has ten fingers (with four thumbs) when using two arms but has twelve when they split into four. It may be possible that Grievous merely had a new finger added before Revenge of the Sith.
- 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. [2]
- Matthew Wood reprised his role as General Grievous for the October 2005 Halloween audiocast from the official Star Wars website. It is available only to Hyperspace members of the official website, however. Wood again reprised his role in the video game of Revenge of the Sith.
- Matthew Wood again reprised his role as Grievous for the game Star Wars: Battlefront II.
- A droid named "Necrosis," a droid occupying Grievous' cyborg body after his death, can be fought by players of Star Wars: Galaxies in a quest in the "Rage of the Wookiees" expansion.
- One of the concept ideas for Grievous was that he was to be a child, with 4 IG-88 droids for bodyguards. This idea was rejected because Lucas felt that such an interpretation wouldn't be taken seriously.
- General Grievous has been seen hanging upside down on numerous occasions in Star Wars: Clone Wars. However, whenever he does so, his cape seems to be unaffected by gravity. It is doubtful that such an important element would simply be overlooked by animators as shadows and points of gravity are integral to every character design. Instead, it was likely done for aesthetic reasons, since General Grievous would simply not look dignified or sufficiently scary with his cape upside down, though it is possible that he was simply holding his cape in place, as only two arms are shown when he pulls out two light sabers while hanging upside down.
[edit] External links
- Star Wars Databank entry for General Grievous
- General Grievous Site
- Grievous Forums
- Grievous on Wookieepedia: The Star Wars Wiki
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