General Grievous

Revenge of the Sith

In Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, General Grievous holds Supreme Chancellor Palpatine hostage aboard his flagship, the Invisible Hand. When the Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker launch a rescue operation, the latter kills Separatist Head of State Count Dooku. Grievous traps the fleeing Jedi and the Chancellor in a ray shield, and has them brought along with R2-D2 to the ship's bridge. He confiscates Kenobi and Skywalker's lightsabers, cackling that he will add them to his vast collection. When R2-D2 creates a distraction, Obi-Wan and Anakin use the Force to retrieve their lightsabers and free themselves. A short battle ensues with Obi-Wan and Anakin overcoming Grievous's MagnaGuards and Battle droids before turning their attention to the General himself. Grievous escapes by using the electrostaff of a fallen MagnaGuard to shatter the bridge's glass and create a vacuum that pulls everything out towards space. He subsequently fires a grapple-hook to secure himself to the ship and scales its exterior en route to an escape pod. Grievous launches all of the other pods as well to prevent the Jedi from escaping the doomed vessel.

Now taking Dooku's place as both the political and military leader of the Separatists, Grievous heads to the planet of Utapau, where the council members of the Confederacy of Independent Systems are hiding; the Separatists have taken the residents of Utapau hostage. At his master Darth Sidious' (secretly Chancellor Palpatine) request, Grievous moves the council members to the volcanic planet Mustafar as the conclusion of the Clone Wars approaches.

Obi-Wan Kenobi later tracks Grievous to Utapau. When Kenobi destroys his MagnaGuards, Grievous duels the Jedi in single combat, splitting each of his mechanical arms in half to simultaneously use four lightsabers. The Republic's Clone troopers then arrive to engage Grievous' Droid Army. Obi-Wan disarms Grievous with the Force and pursues him when the general retreats on his wheelbike, fleeing to the hanger where his starfighter is located. The two engage in hand-to-hand combat, where Obi-Wan manages to rip open Grievous's chest plates, revealing the parts where his organs are located. Enraged, Grievous tosses Kenobi off the platform, easily overpowering him. Using the Force and control, Kenobi manipulates his position, and catches hold of his edge. As Grievous charges at him with his electrostaff, the Jedi uses the force to summon the general's blaster. Before Grievous can deliver the final blow, however, Obi-Wan uses the blaster and fires at General Grievous five times and incinerates his organs underneath his exoskeleton. The cyborg then bursts into flames and dies.

Clone Wars

In Star Wars: Clone Wars, General Grievous's first public appearance is when he attacked several Jedi on Hypori. After killing Daakman Barrek, Grievous and his droids surrounded Tarr Seirr, Sha'a Gi, Aayla Secura, K'Kruhk, Ki-Adi-Mundi and Shaak Ti. After stating he would grant the Jedi a "warrior's death", Grievous battled the six Jedi all by himself, killing Seirr, and injuring Secura, Ti, and K'kruhk. He managed to possess three lightsabers (one in each hand and the third using his left foot) to fight Mundi. As they fought, lightsabers blazing, clone troopers arrived to save the surviving Jedi from Grievous, though they left K'kruhk thinking he was dead.

Sometime later, Grievous searched for Chancellor Palpatine on Coruscant and fought several Jedi that took Palpatine to a secret bunker aboard a maglev train. However, while the general's Magnaguards distracted the lead Jedi, Grievous reached the hardened bunker, killed two other Jedi and captured Palpatine. As Grievous was about to escape, Mace Windu force-crushed his chest plates, severely injuring him. Although many fans believed this to be the reason for his persisting cough heard in Revenge of the Sith, Grievous was actually intended to have had the cough all along (evidenced by him having the cough from the beginning in the subsequent CGI series Star Wars: The Clone Wars). The confusion arose due to the writers of Star Wars: Clone Wars having to produce the series before all of Grievous's final characterizations had been nailed down.

The Clone Wars

In the first season of the computer-animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Grievous is the commander of the huge Separatist warship Malevolence armed with a pair of heavy ion cannons. He also clashes with Obi-Wan Kenobi aboard the Malevolence for the first time when he chases him aboard the warship's railway system. During the ensuing lightsaber duel, Grievous nearly gets the better of Kenobi, but the Jedi Master makes his escape at the last moment. Meanwhile, Anakin secretly sabotages the Malevolence's navigation computer, sending it crashing into a nearby moon. However, Grievous escapes on his starfighter and continues his campaign against the Republic. A few episodes later, Grievous discovers Anakin Skywalker and Padawan Ahsoka Tano infiltrating his secret listening post and seeks out to search for them. He then engages Ashoka and her squad of clone 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 Grievous's recent string of failures, Count Dooku arranges a test for his cyborg henchman – in the form of Jedi Master Kit Fisto and Jedi Knight Nahdar Vebb. In Grievous's personal castle on the third moon of Vassek, the two Jedi and a squad of clone troopers ambush Grievous and cut off his legs. Once repaired, Grievous duels and kills Vebb. On the outskirts of Grievous's castle, the general climbs up from the ledge and unleashes four lightsabers on Fisto. Using the fog to his advantage, Fisto successfully cuts off one of Grievous's hands and reclaims Vebb's lightsaber. Armed with two lightsabers, Fisto gains the upper hand over Grievous to which the general calls in his Magnaguards and Fisto flees. When Grievous reports to Dooku, his master informs Grievous that there is room for improvement.

During the second season, Grievous boards a Republic Cruiser with Jedi Master Eeth Koth on board. Grievous duels Koth and takes him prisoner. Kenobi, Skywalker and Jedi Master Adi Gallia attempt to rescue Koth and capture the cyborg general, resulting in a confrontation between Grievous and Kenobi over the planet Saleucami which Grievous loses. Though the Jedi succeed in rescuing Koth, Grievous, helped by his droids, escapes once again.

In the third season, Grievous, Asajj Ventress and their armies attack the clone factories on the planet Kamino. During the battle, Grievous clashes with Obi-Wan again. However, their duel ends in stalemate and Grievous flees the planet with Ventress. Later on, Grievous commands a sabotage mission using infiltrator droids on the Galactic Senate, resulting in a deregulation of the banks.

During the fourth season, Grievous suffers a humiliating defeat when he attempts 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's invasion force. As Grievous pursues Jar Jar, he slaughters many Gungan Grand Army soldiers. At that moment, General Tarpals intervenes and engages Grievous in a duel. Although he is mortally wounded by the cyborg, Tarpals impales Grievous through his chest which allows the Gungan Army to bombard the wounded general with energized projectiles and capture him. However, he is freed in a prisoner exchange with Skywalker between Dooku and Padmé Amidala. Later, Grievous attacks Gallia's ship, engaging her in a lightsaber duel down a narrow hallway. The duel ends when Grievous kicks Gallia in the chest, sending her flying across the hallway. Grievous then captures Gallia. Shortly after, Gallia escapes Grievous's custody when a strike force led by Jedi Master Plo Koon boards his ship and frees the Jedi Master, prompting Grievous to flee once again. Grievous is later sent to the planet Dathomir under Dooku's orders to exterminate the Nightsisters. Immediately upon landing on the planet's surface, the general begins his rampage and his droid army turns Dathomir into a battlefield. However, Asajj Ventress turns the tide of the battle and fights her way to the general's shuttle where the cyborg emerges to confront her personally. As they duel, Grievous grows overconfident and begins to toy with Ventress until she surprises him by chopping off one of his arms and knocking him to the ground. Grievous then orders his troops to fire on Ventress, wounding her. As the general prepares to deliver the deathblow to his longtime rival, he is attacked by Nightsister zombies and is forced to fight them off while Ventress flees. Under new orders from Dooku, Grievous turns his attention to Nightsister leader Mother Talzin and slaughters his way to her fortress where she narrowly escapes from the general's grasp by teleporting away. Grievous is later seen on Serenno listening to Dooku's fears about Savage Opress.

In the fifth season's premiere episode, Grievous is mentioned by Hondo Ohnaka as having defeated Obi-Wan and won the battle for the system that Florrum is in. This battle is shown in the episode "Bound for Rescue" where Grievous attacks Obi-Wan's ship; the General slaughters a squadron of clones and duels Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan is no match for Grievous and is subsequently defeated, forcing him to abandon his ship. Later, Grievous goes to Florrum personally and announces that the system is under his control now, and that Dooku is having him punish Hondo for holding him for ransom. The droids destroy Hondo's stronghold and his belongings, and hold him prisoner, but Hondo is rescued when Ahsoka and a group of younglings free him and retreat off the planet. Grievous pursues them and fights Ahsoka. Although she has grown stronger since their last battle, Grievous still proves to be more than a match for her. The duel ends when Hondo picks up Ahsoka in the Slave I and takes off, leaving Grievous to stew in his anger. In the first episode of the droid arc "Secret Weapons", Grievous is mentioned in the opening credits, and the primary goal of the mission is to retrieve a module that will decode a transmission that Grievous made about an important Separatist attack.

Grievous was to undergo a design change in the seventh season to look more like his design in Revenge of the Sith. Though the series was cancelled before this could happen, the unfinished animations of the Crystal Crisis arc showed this design. In this arc, Grievous is sent by Dooku to purchase a giant kyber crystal on Utapau, and while Grievous at first obtains the crystal, it is lost when Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi destroy it by overloading its power.^[4]