Fanclub We are not droids! *The official General Grievous fanclub v2.0*

If he survived... Bounty Hunter, Mercenary for sure.
He'd team up with an IG-88 or two, have a bunch of old B1s kept in their storage racks for special occasions. And be off doing various nastiness for cash. Hunting down Han and so forth.

Maybe stirring up Revolutionary ideas in Droids? His IG pals hacking and installing violent firmware upgrades in domestic droids. Of course he doesn't know that his IG-88 companions have plans of their own.

 

Wow. Its been way too long since anyone's posted in here.
That means its time for Grievous stuff to wake the thread up before I go into my musings/questions.









Apologies if I'm repeating what's already been said on here somewhere before; its new to me so oh well.

Okay so today I wanted the TCW episode Lair of Grievous for the first time. AND OMG I LOVED IT SO MUCH.

First before we even get to Grievous, Kit Fisto is great; he'd be up there in the rankings of the coolest Jedi to hang out with imo.

Okay, now, Grievous. This episode might as well be called: Cabin in the Woods: SW-TCW edition, since it takes place in Grievous' lair that's all set up with booby traps and secret passages and hidden cameras at every turn. And I loved it every minute of it.

Gosh, the part where he loses his legs & climbs the ceiling like a jungle gym was epic & in terms of body (well, in this case, robot) horror, was really disconcerting and creepy but also moving. And I loved how they just went there in this episode, in a children's cartoon nonetheless. Watching it made me feel like this was just the warm up & practice to what we get w/Maul's intro in TCW and his transformation, & I can't wait too see it.

His helper droid (the Igor to Grievous' Dr. Frankenstein, sort of if you stretch it), was equally entertaining and very creepy. When he's sitting there rooting for the Mon Calamari's death & Kit Fisto sneaks up on him, I couldn't look away.

I did watch Filoni & the gang's comments afterwards, and thought it was very interesting and so totally awesome of him to aknoge and talk about the comic that had been done about Greivous' origins and how the goal of the episode was not to completely discredit that and ignore it but to leave the episode ambiguous and leave it up to the fans to decide whether or not what was described in the comic had still gone down as it did. So wise and great of them to do.

Overall the episode just made me feel even more sad for Grievous' character and appreciate him all the more. KaleeshEyes sorry, its been a while & I forget what you're view of TCW's Grievous is & would love to know your thoughts. And anyone else's of course.

 

Valency Jane
My view on the TCW character is mixed. He's got better physical presence on screen and seems like more of a threat to the Jedi. He still doesn't actually achieve much, but that's to do with the 'good guys always win' manner of rising the episodes. That sort of structuring pisses me off, but the show is primary targeted at children so I shouldn't really complain
I don't really buy the idea of him being exceptionally cowardly or anything even though it's stated over and over again, because he is always is in unworkable situation ex machina, thanks to the writing again. He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.
I though 1-10 was a very good episode and probably the high point of his appearances, although the reasons for the situation are a tad contrived (as you'd expect in a serial). He was certainly much more physical and tougher than in previous appearances.
His appearances, (which I think are a lot rarer than they should be for a character with a supposedly significant role) seem to vary a lot afterwards, although things could only go up after 1-4, which I would have appreciated more if had been later in the season. Of course the absolute nadir is 4-4, where what is left of his strength and most notably his dignity as a character is left in tatters. Other than that he's often sort of just there, never winning but rarely losing fair and square either. I thought his fight against Kenobi in 2-9 was pretty good as well*, although RotS seems to purvey the idea that they've never met, just what reason why I don't take what's canon too seriously. I do notice that he generally lacks independence, just fulfilling over peoples wishes. I don't like this very much.
Obi-wan's comment about him being 'Dooku's errand boy' is quite on the mark with this depiction.
I think his voice is much better than in RotS, because Matthew Wood isn't effecting a terrible eastern european/stereotypical villain voice. He's a little too growly times, making him hard to understand, but he'd make a cracking death metal singer for more reasons than one Overall his voice is very good with a good use of tones to actually put weight behind his words and a fantastic laugh.
His physical depiction isn't great. He doesn't look much like the movie version, being far too crudely constructed. The CGI isn't great in the early episodes, although it improved immensely later on. They were going to make him look better (excepting the oversized shoulder pieces) for season 7. Then the show was canceled of course
Overall I think his character has quite a few positive and negative points, and some neutral ones (wow, that's a wishy washy statement!)
I don't get the impression that Filoni and crew really respect him as a character. They seem to try to make him have some presence, perhaps conscious of his poorly received Ep. III appearance, but he keeps getting foiled by contrived situations. I think Filoni would rather work on his pet characters (*cough*Ashoka*cough*) rather than make Grievous a good character. He's more of a fall guy at times.
The backstory situation gets to me a bit. Yes Filoni does leave it open to interpretation, but only very narrowly. The original backstory is a confused mess full of authors (*cough*Pena*cough*) trying to put their personal stamp on the character, but if you look at the difference of length between the Legends and Canon Wookieepedia articles you'll see the problem. With one fell swoop a huge amount of character was removed, and nothing's replaced it.
I think General Grievous remains an unfulfilled character. He's crying out for somebody to come a create a good, consistent backstory for him. Preferably working from Visionaries and not including most of Pena's ideas. Hey Kathleen Kennedy, if you're listening, I'm free (not really)
And that concludes another post where I hope I don't come across as too whiney.

*Although my recent burst of interest in European martial arts means that I watch the flamboyant but technically rubbish moves of lightsaber combat with a rather critical eye these days.

 

Let's show some appreciation for Grevious's wheel-bike that literally has legs.

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