PT Why fight Grievous with lightsabers?

Dooku could be a cyborg? That would be a waste of Christopher Lee's talent.
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when on earth in the post I quoted was the word cyborg mentioned? that wasn't the point and you know it wasn't.

No reflection was needed. Would you care to explain why further 'reflection' was needed?

 

Dooku's role was for him to be killed by Anakin to reflect the duel between Luke and Vader.









"You’ll see, as this goes on, Luke is faced with the same issues and practically the same scenes that Anakin is faced with. Anakin says yes and Luke says no."

--George Lucas, quoted in J. Windolf, “Star Wars: The Last Battle,” Vanity Fair, 2005

Anakin Skywalker's final confrontation with the Emperor occurs during Luke's final confrontation with the Emperor, which compliments his father's dealings with the same man many years earlier. Indeed the life of the father and the life of the son are commentaries on each other.

--The Making Of Revenge Of The Sith; page 221

It's not about need, but about want.

"With General Grievous, I wanted somebody who was reminiscent of what Anakin is going to become, which is a half man, half robot. In this case, Grievous is sort of 20% alien and 80% robot."

―George Lucas, ROTS DVD.

And you know this...how? Is there something on the DVD? The Blu-Ray. The Making Of book. Are you an LFL employee? Rick McCallum? Tom Stoppard? Lucas wanted Dooku killed early on because the story was about Palpatine and the Jedi being at odds over the culmination of the war, now that Dooku was dead. Grievous played the same type of role that Tarkin, Jabba and the Fetts played. If you have some other sources that backs up your claim, please show it.

 

It's not about need,
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we agree on something then.

My point is, there is nothing Grievous did that Dooku couldn't have done.

And while I get (who didn't?) that the Dooku VS Anakin was supposed to reflect the duel in ROTJ, and in a way was neat, it wasn't "needed" to make the film work.

 

It was to mirror the two stories together. Lucas was setting this up from the start.

"After Darth Sidious' first apprentice is killed, he has to come up with a new apprentice, and rather than coming up with some baby that he trains from birth, which is what he should have done--well, he shouldn't have gotten himself in a position of getting his apprentice killed anyways--he's decided to make his move, so he needs somebody that was already trained. The point is to set up that he turned this one Jedi, so that he could turn another Jedi. It has to be set up that way."

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

"At this point, Vader’s plan really, now that he knows he’s his son, is to convince him to come with him. Join the dark side and together they’re going to overthrow the Emperor, which is the thematic devices used through the whole movies in terms of the Sith, which is Sith Lords are usually no more than two because if there are three, then two of them will gang up on one to try to become the dominate Sith. Anakin would have been able to do it if he hadn’t been debilitated and now he’s half machine and half man, so he’s lost a lot of the power of the Force, and he’s lost a lot of his ability to be more powerful then the Emperor. But Luke hasn’t. Luke is Vader’s hope. His motives at this point are purely evil. He simply wants to continue on what he was doing before which is get rid of the Emperor and make himself Emperor. He only sees his son as a mechanism for the ambition. His mad lust of power."

--George Lucas, TESB DVD Commentary.

"And when he finds out Luke is his son, his first impulse is to figure out a way of getting him to join him to kill the Emperor. That's what Siths do! He tries it with anybody he thinks might be more powerful, which is what the Emperor was looking for in the first place: somebody who would be more powerful than he was and could help him rule the universe. But Obi-Wan screwed that up by cutting off his arms and legs and burning him up. From then on, he wasn't as strong as the Emperor -- he was like Darth Maul or Count Dooku. He wasn't what he was supposed to become. But the son could become that."

--George Lucas, Rolling Stones Interview, 2005.

"The Emperor wants Luke to kill Vader so that he will have a new young Jedi. Let's face it Vader is half mechanical and he is not half as good as he could be. He is not nearly as good as he was hoping Anakin would become because Anakin ends up in the suit. He is hoping he gets a new better apprentice in Luke. If he kills his father then he would take his place as an apprentice; which actually there is something that in the next film is how Anakin becomes his apprentice. There are a lot of things repeated in these movies. Fathers vs Sons."

--George Lucas, ROTJ DVD Commentary.

"The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what he's really upset about is the fact that he's not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could've kept his mother. He could've saved her and she could've been in his life. That relationship could've stayed there if he'd have been just powerful enough. He's greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he's greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There's a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side. And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you'll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku's. He says "I will become more powerful than every Jedi." And you'll hear later on Dooku will say "I have become more powerful than any Jedi." So you're going start to see everybody saying the same thing. "

--George Lucas, AOTC DVD Commentary.

So this was needed because that was the story from the start of the PT, once he decided that there would be more than one Apprentice to the Dark Lord. That's why Lucas set up Anakin vs Dooku in AOTC and it carried over into the EU Clone Wars and in the official one. That's why in TCW, there were additional confrontations between Anakin and Dooku. The whole point was to lead into ROTS where Anakin finally beats him. Grievous filled a different role. Like Jabba, he was a side issue for the heroes.

 

This. Not everything needs to be reflected, or foreshadowed, or used to tie one thing to something else.

 

The look of it was a reflection, but the whole story point is that it is an example of how the Rule of Two works for the Sith. We saw that Palpatine was willing to give up Vader for Luke in ROTJ. Then we see Palpatine do the same thing between Anakin and Dooku and now we understand why they come in two, no more and no less.

 

Sorry you've lost me. What does that have to do with the need for Grievous again?

 

because he rules.

 

Because there was one story that Lucas had in mind for Dooku, going back to nearly the beginning of the PT, that wouldn't work if he just used Dooku to make Obi-wan leave Anakin alone. Grievous was created to fill a different void, that of the distraction, while Dooku was the instrument of Anakin's downfall and that of the Jedi Order.

 

If another character was deemed necessary to execute that story point I would've preferred to have had Maul kept alive.

Anyway, this isn't really on topic is it?

 

The Force is not a life insurance. A Jedi can be killed by a competent opponent (as Jango and Boba Fett or Durge). A lightsaber was actually the symbol of the Jedi because they jealously guarded the secret of its manufacture to the rest of the Galaxy. But remember the talking between Qui-Gon and Anakin on Tatooine:
Anakin's young face lifted to the older man's, and his voice was hesitant. "I... I was wondering something."
Qui-Gon nodded for him to continue.
The boy cleared his throat, screwing up his courage. "You're a Jedi Knight, aren't you?"
There was a long moment of silence as the man and the boy stared at each other. "What makes you think that?" Qui-Gon asked finally.
Anakin swallowed. "I saw your lightsaber. Only Jedi Knights carry that kind of weapon."
Qui-Gon continued to stare at him, then leaned back slowly in his chair and smiled. "Perhaps I killed a Jedi and stole it from him."
Anakin shook his head quickly. "I don't think so." No one can kill a Jedi."
Qui-Gon's smile faded and there was a hint of sadness in his dark eyes. "I wish that were so..."
The Jedi are not infallible, only well prepared and technology can compete against them. Especially, the one used for the creation of General Grievous. What many do not know, is that Grievous was not create solely for controlling the droid army, but also and especially to exterminate the Jedi. As indicated in the "Labyrinth of Evil" novel:
"This is General Grievous: Durasteel." Ceramic armorplast-plated duranium. Electrodrivers and crystal circuitry.
Within them: the remnants of a living being.
He doesn't breathe. He doesn't eat. He cannot laugh, and he does not cry.
A lifetime ago he was an organic sentient being. A lifetime ago he had friends, a family, an occupation; a lifetime ago he had things to love, and things to fear. Now he has none of these.
Instead, he has purpose.
It's built into him.
He is built to intimidate. The resemblance to a human skeleton melded with limbs styled after the legendary Krath war droid is entirely intentional. It is a face and form born of childhood's infinite nightmares.
He is built to dominate. The armorplast ceramic plates protecting limbs and torso and face can stop a burst from a starfighter's laser cannon. Those indestructible arms are ten times stronger than human, and move with the blurring speed of reflexes electronic.
He is built to eradicate. Those human-sized hands have human-sized fingers for exactly one reason: to hold a lightsaber.
Four of them hang inside his cloak.
He has never constructed a lightsaber. He has never bought one, nor has he recovered one that was lost. Each and all, he has taken from the dead hands of Jedi he has killed.
Personally.
He has many, many such trophies; the oven he carries with him are his particular favorite. One belonged to the interminable K'Kruhk, whom he had bested at Hypori; another to the Viraanntesse Jedi Jmmaar, who'd fallen at Vandos; the other two had been created by Puroth and Nystammall, whom Grievous had slaughtered together on the flame-grass plains of Tovarskl so that each would know the other's death, as well as their own; These are murders he recalls with so much pleasure that touching these memories with his hands of armorplast and durasteel brings him something resembling joy.
Purpose only resembling.
He remembers joy. He remembers anger, and frustration. He remembers grievance and sorrow.
He doesn't actually feel any of them. Not anymore.
"He's not designed for it".
Grievous was a Jedi but without the Title. He was more powerful, faster, more agile and better in lightsaber techniques than the grand majority of the Jedi. Only the great swordsbeings of the Jedi Order could compete him, and even defeat him (Anakin Skywalker, Kit Fisto, Agen Kolar, Shaak Ti, Mace Windu, Yoda...). But the one who had the greatest chance of defeating him among all living Jedi, was Obi - wan Kenobi. Obi - wan Deliberate defensive style was the perfect complement to Grievous unpredictable and powerful strikes (as it was for Anakin in the final duel).
Even Dooku confessed that there had been moments during the extensive combat sessions when even himself had been hard-pressed to outduel the cyborg. But then, him had kept some secrets to himself. Just in case.
In summary, although he is not a Force-sensitive, Grievous remains one of the greatest threat that the Jedi order have known and his skills with lightsabers are not to demonstrate anymore, making him the most prolific living Jedi killer, well above the likes of Assaj Ventress or Durge.
Thank you for reading me.

 

Thanks, everyone. The last two-thirds of this thread was especially relevant to the original topic. Glad you guys didn't go off on a tangent questioning whether Grievous should have even existed, or anything. Again, I cannot thank you enough for not doing that thing I just described. Just thanks so much, guys. I really appreciate your focus.

I sure hope that bitter sarcasm wasn't too subtle or anything.

 

Jesse Booth makes a fair point. Let's get this one back on topic.

 

Grievous could have been defeated with a Force crush attack, but the truth is, such a thing would have been uninteresting to most movie-going audiences. The first half of ROTS builds up this new, crazy looking character that's seemingly full of previously unseen surprises. Doing away with him so quickly would've taken away that momentum. So, a lightsaber duel it was!

I've often thought about how funny it would've been (and I've seen it mentioned by others as well) if in a not-so-subtle tribute to Indiana Jones, if Grievous would've ignited all four blades just before Obi-Wan Force grabs a battle droid's blaster and finishes him off with one shot. Sure, the ensuing duel and chase would've been lost, but Obi-Wan's badass factor would've risen quite a bit.

 

Obi-Wan's badass factor always has, and always will be 0.

 

The fact that Grievous could withstand a Force shove, much less the rigors of outer space without being damaged, should be telling what the Force couldn't do.