PT Was Grievous a good villain?

I'm not comparing OT to the PT as I've tried to keep to the topic of the PT. But since you mention those other characters......

I think the OT has a totally different dynamic to the PT. Essentially I mean that the OT is basically Vader vs Luke, with other characters playing supporting roles around that. In the PT the story is much more complicated surrounding the machinations of Palpatine. But those villains that appear are actually playing big parts in the overall story the marketing around them put them at the forefront of the campaigns, yet they aren't used enough or given enough of a chance within the story to develop and grab you like Vader did in the space of just one film (no pun intended).

In the original SW the main villains are only Tarkin and Vader, the reality is that back then we have no real knowledge of what the Emperor or the Galactic Senate are, so the movie sees Tarkin in control with Vader being the scary no nonsense iron fist for him. Cushing puts in a very commanding performance for me, (I think that was the intention for Christopher Lee too in the PT), but he gives that character life far and above most of the actors or CGI could muster in the PT.

ESB again sees the main villain as Vader. You mention Piett, but he is an officer on the periphery of it. Nothing at all wrong with that, he just isn't central to the action or story and as such the only thing we need to know is that is an Admiral on a Star Destroyer with Vader in charge. Boba Fett is a different kind of character with a different motivation within the story, and its just the sub plot to take Solo away. Yet I think what makes him cool is that he says very little, looks great and there is an intrigue and mystique to that character. The same can probably be said of Maul too, but the problem with Maul is that he is one of the central Sith villains and hardly appears in the film. What we see is really good and made me wish he was in it more.

ROTJ again the central villains are Vader now with the Emperor, (Mcdiarmid puts in a great performance as he did through out the PT). Jabba was a different part of the story and his inclusion had already been teed up in the previous movies.

I suppose in a long winded way I'm just saying continuity of those villains would of benefitted the films for me. Maul and Grievous appear briefly and yet I didn't feel any kind of attachment to them. It was good to see Dooku across the last 2 prequels, yet I feel his back story was an important one to have included in the first movie. I go back to the marketing surrounding TPM and Darth Maul. My frustration with Darth Maul is he was central to the marketing push of the film and it was a disappointment to see he wasn't in it much. I believe Maul was 'portrayed' to be the equivalent of Vader, in terms of him being an evil Sith villain to focus on with a very distinctive look. But I think he was under used. I also think that was true of Grievous to a lesser degree too, as his face was everywhere in the run up to the film, yet he wasn't really that important as it turned out.

 

I thought Grievous was a fantastic villain...in the EU prior to ROTS at least. AS of ROTS he really became a joke character, many of the villains in the Prequels were wasted potential that had their greatness expressed elsewhere. Its unfortunate, as Grievous and Dooku became some of my favorite not due to the movies but due to the EU material. Jango was the best villain of the prequels and he wasn't even a main villain.

Grievous was a coward who did nothing but boast about how good he was and failed constantly in ROTS (and quite often in TCW sadly) in contrast to the commader feared by the Republic in the EU. I remember being in awe of his little cameos in Republic Commando. It has always frustrated me to no end as the character was so great beforehand, I was a massive CIS fan before ROTS. They became a joke then, I liked the "Roger Roger" battle droids with no personality and the crazy villains the CIS had at their disposal was great. Durge, Asajj Ventress (who actually was great in the Microseries, EU, and TCW), and others. I loved how odd the villains of the CIS were in the Clone Wars multimedia project, TCW had a copule of cool CIS villains but not enough. ROTS did the CIS and its heroes no justice. Its unfortunate, I like how "odd" The Clone Wars was presented originally as compared to the way the Galactic Civil War was.

I suppose it is irrelevant to bring up the EU in a discussion focusing on the Prequels, but Grievous was another one of the many missed opportunities of the Prequels. Unfortunate.

 

I totally agree grievous is a great villain who looks the part and he is memorable, especially in the EU, but not so much in ROTS.

 

I think it is selling the movie short if you decide that the villains don't have to be good, you settle for them being average.
Lucas was in a position that few ever have been in. He knew that he had three films, so he had more time than most in developing his characters. I just think he squandered the opportunity with some of the villains.

I am sure there was a reason why the villains in Battlefield Earth looked and acted the way that they were. That didn't stop them from looking very bad and came across as total morons.
This was one of the many reasons why I found that film extremely bad. The villains were terrible.

Who said anything about large-than-life? Having a character, a bit of backstory and being shown as dangerous doesn't have to entail that.
Ex. say that Maul killed Qui-Gon on Tatooine. That would have shown him being deadly a lot earlier.
That would have made any further run ins with him more tense and would have given Obi-Wan more to deal with. Feelings or anger etc. There is some of this in TPM but not much.

Take the first Matrix or the first Terminator. Smith and the Arnold Terminator isn't really he main bad guy, they are just working for them. But Smith is given character and shown to very capable and so when Neo decides to stand against him, we know what he is up against.
In Terminator, Arnold plays an unstoppable force and tension is created because we see how relentless the enmey is and we wonder how he can be stopped, if at all.

[/QUOTE]

Well I don't agree.
I found Maul and Griev totally uninteresting, all style and no substance. Maul was at least somewhat capable, Griev was all talk and no delivery.
Jango was pretty good for what was needed of him. I think it would have been better if he and Obi-Wan had fought in the arena. The film had set up a conflict between them and a rematch would have made sense. I got some sense of fan service where he was concered.
Dooku was the best of them and was played by a good actor and had lots of potential. But I felt he was underused and killed off too soon.
If Dooku had been in TPM and shown to be a good guy and a friend to Qui-Gon. Then his turn in AotC would have resonated more.

Answer:
Tarkin, has a strong character and played very well by Peter Cushing. He is icy and ruthless.
He doesn't react well to setbacks, he is arrogant but does listen to Vader. There is a sort of friendship or at least mutal respect between them. As was said, Tarkin is the brains and Vader the muscle. And yet Vader is shown as quite inteligent and proactive. He talks to Tarkin like an equal, suggests plans and acts on his own initiative. In all, if find Tarkin superiour to Maul, Jango and Griev.
Dooku is close but he was killed too soon. Tarkin lasted as long as was needed.

Boba. I am not nearly as interested with this character as others are. In ESB he was the one who tracked the MF and enabled Vader to catch them. He also brought Han to Jabba. He was a bounty hunter and that was enough for what was needed there. He did have some character in that he stod up to Vader and dared to question him. Him being at Jabbas place I actually found a bit odd. He is a bounty hunter, why is he there? In ESB I got the sense that he worked on his own. So why is he at Jabbas place?
It does make some sense that some closeure was needed here. Had he been gone, the audience might have wondered.

Piett. He is a very minor character in ESB and RotJ. Mostly an imperial officer that Vader gives orders to and gives needed information. He is basically a named imperial, little else.
If he has some character it is that he pays attention to detail and is thourough. He reports to Ozzel and despite it being clear that Ozzel isn't listening, Piett keeps at it. Here is a mere captain that talks back to an admiral. Ozzel clearly don't like it given the look he gives Piett.

In closing, I don't think Piett or Boba is nearly as important to the plot and story as Maul, Jango, Dooku or Griev. Nor are they given as much focus in the film or marketing. Piett esp.
Maul is the main upfront bad guy in TPM. Dooku is a key player in AotC and Griev is the focus for much of RotS. None of the heroes even meet Piett or know his name.

Tarkin is much more important and thus have more screen time, a better developed character and much to do.

Bye for now.
The Guarding Dark

 

GG is the worst villain in SW ever I do not understand why he talks like that he just looks so fake it's irritating to me every time he's on the screen just my opinion tho

 

He was okay. I liked his fight with Obi-Wan.

 

off all the villians in the GL6, Grievous is my least favorite. Of the 9 nine main villians of the saga, he is ranked dead last. He would been better if he was just a complete droid and not an alien cyborg.

 

Awful villain. His inclusion in RoTS seemed random and TCW made he look incompetent.

 

Grievous is a really strange character.

Despite having very little screentime, we get to know quite a bit about him. He's a bit of a coward, he was trained in Jedi Arts by Count Dooku, he was once a sentient being who was later injured and became a cyborg and (possible connection) he is at feud with the Jedi for some time, collecting lightsabers of the Jedi he killed.

What other villain is given as many background with so little screentime? I can only think of Darth Vader in the first film (ANH).
We knew much less about Boba Fett (pre-AOTC) and Maul and still they are a lot more popular.

So why did Grievous fail to become more popular? Wasn't his design memorable? Was it because he wasn't portrayed as a "badass" villain?
My guess would be the fact that he was killed mid-way in the film and wasn't given enough time to ... come to life for the viewers and leave his mark. However, it was a bit of his destiny as a tertiary villain in the film.

Still, it's interesting to think about Grievous as a characters and the way he is perceived by the audience.

 

He seems like he should be intimidating, but isn't.
Perhaps kind of intentional though, the Seperatists aren't the official bad guys of ROTS, and when the Sith take over they are really in the same boat as everyone else. I actually found the TF in Phantom Menace more menacing.
So I think he serves his purpose. He was never part of Sidious' master plan anyway.

 

He's rather more intimidating in the old Clone Wars cartoon - killing multiple Jedi onscreen.

 

True, I preferred that show to the recent series, although besides the Clone Wars movie I've hardly watched the CGI one.
He seemed maybe too powerful in the microseries though, someone with no attunement to the force you wouldn't think could hold his own against so many Jedi at once.

 

Perhaps a bit. We do see him making full use of terrain in the microseries - retreat-attack-retreat, on Hypori at the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3.

In the TCW series, he starts off capable of holding Masters off, and killing Knights - in Season 1 and 2 - but goes downhill a bit later - getting dogpiled by Gungans. The Crystal arc on Starwars.com (Unfinished Episodes) keeps him as formidably dangerous and ruthless.

 

Wait, season 3? Wasn't the original Clone Wars microseries just two seasons?

 

Two DVDs - but 3 seasons. Season 1 and Season 2 are on the first DVD - both were short and fairly similar. Season 3 is about as long as the other two put together - and different in theme - two long arcs, intersecting, rather than many small ones.

 

I didn't know that, I just downloaded it tbh. So is the end of Season 2 the start of the battle of Coruscant, or is that the end of season 3?

 

End of Season 2 is Grievous leaping at Ki-Adi Mundi.

End of Season 3 is Grievous having completed his abduction of Palpatine, and Our Heroes setting off to rescue him. The Battle of Coruscant starts fairly early in Season 3, when Grievous's ships enter Coruscant's atmosphere on their way to carry out the abduction.

 

Oh cool I've seen it all then.
My favourite part in the series was Anakin's vision in the cave. The metaphor of his helping hand turning on the people of the galaxy was quite well done.

 

I'm curious about the Young Anakin & Qui-Gon in the Dagobah Cave scene - is it a dream or did Qui-Gon actually take time out during TPM for a trip to Dagobah?

 

Grievous isnt that cowardly, even the ROTS and TCW version, if you are outmatched, it is wise to retreat. Especially when you are supreme commander of the Cis. He never "cowers" or shows fear in a fight. Hell the good general keeps his composure and keeps fighting when swarmed by shrieking dathomiri zombies during a misty night and he's a non force sensitive who loves the thrill of fighting against jedi . Is he really "cowardly" when he willing fights tons of armed gungans that have surrounded him and gave him the chance to surrender? (even if he is pathetically defeated?)

Even when obi wan shoots his organs and his eyes catch on fire he does not beg for mercy or cower.

 

Ive been watching Clone Wars, he is definitely interesting in the show. I dont really see him as a cyborb though, more like an alien with a robot body. Lazy character, toy commercial.

 

I seriously don't get these "it was only for the merchandise" criticisms. Pretty much every popular character in the movies is exploited by the merchandising wing. It's only when people don't like the characters that everyone talks about how they were an obvious marketing ploy. Maybe Lucas just tried to create an engaging, interesting-looking character and failed. I very much doubt he writes movies with merchandise in mind. No one's ever produced any real evidence of him doing that.

Well, everything's exaggerated in the microseries. In the movies, Mace Windu probably isn't capable of demolishing an entire army of droids all by himself. I don't know why everyone expected General Grievous, alone of all the characters in the microseries, to be exactly the same in the movie as he was in the cartoon.

 

Personally, I'm very glad he didn't turn out to be what we saw in the micro-series.

 

Yeah, he would have upstaged Darth Sidious in his own movie.

 

I guess he had his place, but I'm not a real big fan of GG.