What's Up With My General Grievous Unleashed Figure?

I absolutely love the movie design of General Grievous (whether I'll feel the same about him as a character depends on how he'll do onscreen--if he sounds like a dork or doesn't move or carry himself well, the love affair is over!} and visited the local Toys-R-Us this past weekend to see if I couldn't find a nice figure of him. Good timing. The Star Wars stuff was newly in and they had seven (!) versions of him to choose from. Liked the Unleashed figure best and that's the one I took home with me...

Once I got him out of the box, however, I found the oddest thing. The box illos show the figure holding two lightsabers, both in a left-pointing direction if he's facing you. My guy, though, is holding his rearmost lightsaber in the opposite way, so that it points off to the right. You can't turn the hilt around so that he's holding it differently, either--the hilts are molded in.

Now, I have zero problem with this because holding the lightsabers this way actually adds to the flow of the pose IMO--it looks like Grievous is having a little fun twirling that rearmost weapon around before really winding up to slice someone silly. Having that hand's thumb uppermost on the hilt also just looks more 'natural', somehow. I'm mainly just wondering if all the finished Unleashed figures of Grievous wound up looking this way or if I've just got an oddball one. It's a small change, true, but does produces a pose that's definitely noticeable as being different than that of the figure depicted on the packaging.

There were two other Unleashed figures of Grievous in the store, but I have no idea if they had the reversed hilt too. I mainly just had a quick look over the lot of them to make sure nothing was broken, then picked out the one I thought had the best paint job and facial expression...such as it is...

Thanks in advance for any insight from you bona fide collectors and apologies if this topic has been addressed before. If it has been, I didn't find it...

 

Mine is the same way. I think they all are. I'm glad you like General Grievous - I and many other people do too! If I may say so, I've seen a little bit of footage of him in TV spots and things along those lines, and I think he looks and sounds great. I don't expect to be disappointed.

 

Doesn't the package say: actual product/colors may vary from picture, or something like that?

 

Wow, thanks for the quick replies! If all the figures twirl their lightsabers both ways (mmm, that sounds kind of...never mind), then that's fine by me and I can certainly buy that no one wanted to alter the packaging illos for a last-minute change...like I said, I quite like the pose my fellow's holding. Padme-Wan SkyWindu, you're lucky. I've seen exactly one second of General Grievous footage aired as part of a quick TV promo for the upcoming movie, but even that was already enough for me to perk up and think, whoa! who's the cool new robot dude? (Or rather, cool alien cyborg dude, as I found out...) For those of you who have heard him speak, what does he sound like, incidently? A mechanically-timbred voice, I presume? Maybe an accent, because of the alien background? Not that I'd want a Poggle-weird accent for him or anything laughable, but something unique would be nice...

I'm also glad to hear that a LOT of fans like the look of him! There's definitely something there... Cute aside for you Grievous fans: Along with the figure of Grievous this weekend, I also bought the visual dictionary for the new movie, and just before sending this topic, on the computer at work, a woman leaving the building for the day stopped by to have a look at it. She's a casual SW fan and hadn't yet seen any details of the upcoming movie, no photos or footage, yet zeroed right in on Grievous on sight just as I had, pausing when she came to the book's pictures of him with a laugh and a "Who the heck is this?" exclamation. Also like me, she almost instantly loved his design and after perusing his particulars for a while, proclaimed him very "sleek". I think that too. There's just something very greyhoundy-slick and elegant-looking about him that makes him visually appealling to me. By the way, I'm female and 50, and the woman that just thought Grievous was sleek is in her 40s, an air force captain. Believe me, it takes a lot to get us old babes worked up anymore, and whatever that indefinable 'it' may be that intrigues and draws the eye, it's sure beginning to look like General Grievous has 'it'!

 

I haven't opened mne YET, but everyone I've talked to has the one with the backward facing saber. I think it's the only version.

 

They simply put the blade insertion hole on the other side of the lightsaber. If you look closely at the picture and the final toy you can see the lightsaber hilt is still in the same direction but the blade attached at the other side.

 

Hey Biddybot, you can see and hear him for yourself in this video here. It's a 30-second TV ad, and Grievous isn't in it too much, but you do get to hear him talk. There's a nice description of the process of the creation of his voice here.

 

My Grievous Unleashed is the same way. I had started a thread on it but by now it is probably down around page 10.

 

I know this is off topic, but am I the only one who thinks this Grievous should have come with four lightsabers?

 

I wouldnt mind another Grievous Unleashed. Maybe one where he's in a crazy @ss pose with all four sabers fighting Obi-Wan.

I think his mask looks wicked. No Emotions of any kind. Just a skeletal-like structure that makes him look pi$$ed off 24/7.

 

PhantomMenace: Can't speak for anyone else, but no, I wouldn't have wanted the Unleashed figure to be holding four lightsabers--I like him just as he is and think it shows off a little more dexterity and smarts, that he's prepared to use a blaster in addition to the lightsabers. Just my preference... The 12" version of Grievous I saw at the store does come with four lightsabers, so there's one option if you want a figure of the character that's swinging with all fours. Decent figure, too. I only passed on him because the one I examined had a weird expression that made him appear massively depressed for some odd reason and there's just no way I can take seriously a villain that looks about ready to burst into tears.

Padme-Wan SkyWindu: Thanks for those links! Will have to wait to use a different computer to access the trailer, but was able to just read that article on creating the voice. Heh...a bit of an east Europeon accent, eh? Hope he doesn't sound like one of my uncles. And Grievous coughs? Oh great, now I'm going to imagine him having a horrible smoker's hack...I also wouldn't have thought he has enough of his organic self left to cough with. By sheer coincidence, when I was looking at updated pictures of him earlier, I stumbled onto another site that mentions the trailer you linked to, along with one fan's assurance: 'You will also heave a big sigh of relief when Grievous yells out "Crush Them" and he just sounds totally cool. I feel like such a Star Wars dork right now, beyond excited. Thank God Grievous sounds cool!' Another quote, ref. another trailer, also mentions the coughing: '...the other shows how General Grievous walks. This footage of General Grievous scared me for a second, because he sort of looks Jar-Jarish when he walks and his head kinda rattles around, but then I was informed that he crouches like that while walking and he is coughing when is head is moving around. I forgot Mace Windu crushed his "lungs" in the final episode of the Clone Wars cartoon.' All that's from the entertainment section at thegreenhead.com. They even have an entry on the General Grievous giant Pez dispenser, which looks frankly hilarious.

Well, thanks again, all, for reassuring me that I didn't get a wacky figure, just a normal one that 'may not be/was not exactly as illustrated'.