An Ode to Grievous

Inventive Design

General Grievous is the product of George Lucas tasking the Lucasfilm art team at Skywalker Ranch to create a scary and iconic new droid general for the third episode. The team presented many concepts for Lucas to review, including more hulking synthetic creatures, a child-like being in a floating chair, and an elongated head with wire-like tentacles. As discussed in a Star Wars Insider interview, one of the early designs Lucas gravitated towards came from Warren Fu. The design, which Fu says was subconsciously influenced by the look of the Tusken Raiders, would later become the MagnaGuards. 

When it came time for Lucas to see more designs, another of Fu’s pieces would become the now unforgettable look for the General. In behind-the-scenes footage, concept artist Iain McCaig would say, “The art department team is… very much like a jazz band ensemble where you know it’s your time for the drum solo.”

Fu’s early Grievous design already incorporated elements like the skull-like mask with mantis-like mandibles, which he would later refine to give a “creepy Michael Myers vibe.” His early concepts of the body featured a shield and blaster as Grievous’ weapons, meaning that whichever route they went from this stage on, Grievous was always going to look intimidating and unique.

One key element of the design came from Fu’s colleague Ryan Church saying the fateful phrase, “Do a droid with alien eyes, we’ve never seen that before.” This direction worked on multiple levels, as Lucas would say of the General, “He’s an alien in a droid shell, which is sort of an echo of what Anakin is going to become.” 

Through all of the iterations, Warren Fu managed to create a character that was simultaneously entirely new to the franchise but also familiar, fitting right in with the rest of the universe’s aesthetic.

Impact

General Grievous has been around for over two decades now. And with the Star Wars galaxy growing with ever-expanding storytelling, it’s hard to know where new fans will encounter him for the first time. But no matter where or when you meet him, Grievous makes an impression. 

I was seven when Revenge of the Sith came out. There’s a reason, when I started writing on this site, I put down playing with my neighbor’s General Grievous toy as my earliest Star Wars memory. Technically, I had already seen all the released films that came before it, but nothing stands out quite as vividly in my mind as encountering my first Grievous action figure. 

Imagine you’re in my position. As a kid, what could possibly be cooler than a lightsaber? The only answer is two lightsabers. But wait: three lightsabers? Unheard of. And, hold on now. Four lightsabers? It’s almost greedy.

The one-two punch of seeing the Grievous figure’s arms slide apart and then trying to understand why he had “good-guy” colored lightsabers was almost too exciting for young me. His backstory being a Jedi hunter trained by Count Dooku was endlessly captivating. On top of everything, when I finally got to watch Revenge of the Sith, one of the first things we got to see him do was use a grappling hook, the definition of enviable gadgets.

His lines, like “Your lightsabers will make a fine addition to my collection,” and the intonation of how he says “General Kenobi” during his duel on Utapua, have since become ubiquitous thanks in no small part to voice actor Matthew Wood and Skywalker Sound. For almost any Star Wars fan, even reading those lines, we all hear them with the same robotic growl. 

After the Revenge of the Sith, Grievous’ impact and appearance would only expand. While he is a constant presence throughout Star Wars: The Clone Wars, one of the General’s most iconic showings was during the Season 1 episode Lair of Grievous. 

Again, imagine you’re a kid watching for the first time. Kit Fisto is incredibly cool, and you’re intrigued by his young Padawan. You may not know the species name Mon Calamari, but you recognize that Nadhar Vebb is the same kind of alien as Admiral Ackbar from the movies (and the memes,) which is important. That means something. Nahdar Vebb is young like you. He’s confident but reckless. When it is time for him to fight Grievous alone, he’s doing well, clashing evenly for a time. But Grievous is only using two of his hands. And as you know, he’s only operating at half his capacity. You see Grievous use his spare arm to reach for a blaster. And just like that, the young Padawan is gone.

While he could often be seen running away to fight on another day, moments like that one helped cement that scary factor that has always been a memorable part of the character.

Despite his unsavoriness, I remember waking up in the middle of the night in college, frantically scrambling something down on a nearby whiteboard, and going back to bed. In the morning, I saw the phrase “BFW Grarvous.” I was puzzled. But I later deciphered that my message was a reminder to myself that I had had a dream where I was Best Friends with General Grievous. 

He’s the type of character that sticks with you. 

Continuity and Spirit

Despite being two of the major actors on either side of the titular Clone Wars, the team at Lucasfilm Animation did not allow Anakin and Grievous to meet directly throughout the entirety of the series. It was a dedicated commitment to continuity since Anakin remarks in Revenge that the former is “Shorter than he expected.” It’s a small line that the team could have chosen to ignore, but they took on the creative challenge to honor that continuity. Again, Grievous gets to be the vehicle through which the creatives behind various Star Wars projects honor the fact that it is a massive shared universe.

You can play as General Grievous in games like Star Wars Battlefront II and most recently in Fortnite. As the character, you can crawl around, do cartwheels, and spin your sabers around like a kid winding up a wheel punch. He’s a genuine menace, but he also captures the inventive charm that has been present in the series ever since R2-D2 made a beep-boop quip or a Jawa shouted, “Utini!” 

In the Marvel one-shot Star Wars: Age of Republic - General Grievous, we see more of Grievous as a character. He’s not the best guy. As he explores an abandoned Jedi temple, we see him confronted by a vision of himself before his cybernetics. He must face the idea that his values and definitions of strength are small and petty (they are!). He finds no interest in self-reflection. As a character, he is not redeemable. He is not admirable. Instead, he has his fleet fire on the temple. “For all your talk of power, you burn just as easily,” he says. 

For all his bluster and coughing bravado, he is ultimately empty, a being who cares only about destruction. Through stories like this, we get to understand what makes Grievous a villain through and through. In the aforementioned Tales of the Empire episode, we see how his destructive actions only reverberate to create more pain and trauma throughout the lives of characters like Morgan Elsbeth, whose mother he slays.

Star Wars is many things. At its best, it captures deep political themes and presents harrowing stories. But it is also a colorful and inventive place. A sandbox to play in, where various artists combine concepts to create tools for other artists, then kids, and folks of all ages to get to imagine more stories. Grievous is able to hold both halves of the appeal of Star Wars inside of him (which is probably easy for him with his many arms).

General Grievous is a cool design. General Grievous is a genuine menace. General Grievous represents what makes Star Wars, well, Star Wars. 

General Grievous is a piece of art. 

And sometimes in my dreams, General Grievous is my best friend.