I like the "I thought you would be taller" line in the movie, when you go back and see, for all the universe, Anakin _never_ actually gets face to face with Grievous through the Clone Wars, until the movie, lol
@@landonletterman831a fact Dave Filoni ALWAYS brings up. You can feel that he was ACHEING to do a story where Anakin and Grevious face off with their skill and mindset laid bare. But he was Lucas’s protege and was wanting to stick to the canon made in the films. Ah~ the road not taken…
The Kaleesh war against the empire needs more light. I never seen a rather primitive species utterly shit all over a technological and militaristic juggernaut like they did.
The real problem with TCW wasn't that they nerfed Grievous compared to the 2003 version; it was that all of his badass moments and wins were offscreen while his losses were kept front and center. All those lightsabers had to come from somewhere, and if he was as incompetent all the time as he was on screen (like say, when he got his mechanical rear handed to him by Gungans) then the Clone Wars would have ended in a month.
@@thedarkknightdetective2559Obi wan is also the best user of soresus defense so its a wall that no even 4 lightsabers could pass, any other jedi would strugle more against the droid army general.
Totaly true. Grievous was though by Dooku and Sidious as an threat to scary the galaxy and distract the jedi from palpatines plans and political movements so it makes sense to me that a horror simbol like grievous should be scarier like in the 2003.
to be fair, what are people supposed to conclude when TCW G's failures are the front and focus of everything? but aside from that, he was definitely nerfed. even simply scrutinizing TCW G's individual duels and tactics with the old G's individual duels and battles, and you realize that the idea that these are same people DOESN'T remotely hold up.
Its no secret that, no matter how good TCW was, the show had a huge, huge Republic/Jedi bias. Its not just Grievous, its also Dooku and the CIS as a whole that got "nerfed" and presented one-dimensionaly, especially the early seasons. Even the later seasons that incorporated more of the dark side of the Republic and Jedi Order, never did anything like that for the other side. Its still a great show, but you just have keep the bias in mind when watching it, otherwise you just get a wrong impression of The Clone Wars (the era) and their characters.
From what I read apparently George Lucas didn’t like Grievous’s Legends backstory, as he felt it was too similar to Vader’s backstory and felt that he should be a moustache twirling type of villain. Because of that people have often criticized him for that as he was criticized from the prequel trilogy from back then
i don't blame them. the legend's backstory was, despite being similar to Vader's backstory, a much richer character than what we ended up with later on, and portrayed in a much more competent manner. its hard to like replacing a badass with a deep backstory with a cackling cardboard cutout that folds in the face of opposition.
Did George forget he approved and commissioned Grievous' Legends backstory? 😂 He seems to not able to handle his own employees sometimes and then acts with surprised Pikachu face. Warren Fu, the guy who designed Grievous and worked on Episode 3, made his backstory! George can't blame EU writers for this one, it was one of his team. The guy is now a filmmaker, and would be perfect guy to direct and write a Grievous series.
That was a huge mistake on George’s part. He already had a mustache twirling old school villain in the form of Dooku. Grievous is suppose to be Dooku’s attack dog, not a mustache twirling old villain. You gotta put the right elements on the right characters, and Grievous being the aforementioned type of villain simply doesn’t suite him.
I think the horror movie villain portrayal could have still worked. For the bulk of his time on screen, have him in a command center giving orders and only confronting the heroes directly when it becomes absolutely necessary. This way we get the best of both worlds. The cunning and cruel commander who cackles as his forces commit one atrocity after another and the horror movie monster that the heroes can do little more than run away from.
@@alpha77productions22 He has a sort of fucked up "warriors code" in the Labyrinth of Evil novel as well. You can see it a couple of times against Jedi. He lets one hit him a few times, before killing her. He also displayed this sort of twisted "honor" in the General Grievous miniseries published by Dark Horse. When a padawan girl is brave enough to challenge him and ask him a fighting chance against him, he actually offers her one of his lightsabers. She gets clobbered immediately, of course, but not killed, to which he says he'll have his lightsaber back. Those stories both maintain his ruthlessness and the horror element too. In the comic, he wants to make padawan into cyborgs like him, an idea alone that is pretty horrifying. He also orders the death of a city full of Ugnaughts in the comic, when the same padawan girl shows an act of defiance against him. He'd do similar things in Labyrinth of Evil, during the Battle of Coruscant, where he straight up orders civilian targets be attacked, to disorient Jedi and clones. I'd imagine he used similar tactics when he was organic against the Huk during their war, especially when he got more brutal and put them on the defense. Basically, Grievous seems to have a tiny bit of respect for power and the willingness to challenge him on some level. But he registers everyone else in war as, largely, collateral damage.
It made more sense with Grievous being grievously, no pun intended, injured by Windu and why he had to run. He almost went down to a Force Crush on his chest and didn't want to push his luck further.
Well that only works as reason why he outright fled from Obi-Wan and Anakin on his ship, because he pretty much just came back from the surface where he endured that injury and why Obi-Wan could (barely) beat him on his own later on. Though there is a lot more situations where Grievous seemed weaker in The Clone Wars
As much as I love Grievous in all of his portrayals, I wish we could have seen him victorious more often, like in Lair of Grievous. Granted he'd only beaten a Padawan, but that still takes more skill then most organic beings have.
Hell my favorite example of your point is Achilles. Dude was invincible yet still died from an arrow to the heel. In a good story no one is truly immortal
This might sound harsh, but I think it also shows how superficial some people are in the fandom, the lack of critical thinking skills and is a testament as to why Star Wars is devolving Grievous is one if my favorite Star Wars characters in the entire franchise and it’s a shame he’s just boiled down to superficial powerscaling and ‘GriEvOuS gOt NeRfEd’ like it’s some kind of League if Legends patch
@@blackblack1167also people calling him a coward bothers me, he’s not a coward, he’s intelligent and understands when he’s beaten. He strategically retreats and regroups when he needs to, and most importantly lives through his battles
That's why anytime people are arguing about who would win in a fight with Palpatine and someone is arguing that Sidious is always going to win I just ask "Damn that's crazy so he won't lose if a barely alive, one armed cyborg did one (1) thing he didn't expect? Like he can't be easily surprised and thrown down a vent shaft before he can stop his assailant with his god-like force powers or anything?"
I think a lot of people forget that it wasn't just grievous that was overpowered in the 2003 series, it was everyone. The scale was ramped up to an almost ridiculous degree with characters like Mace Windu fighting against 1000's of droids at once single handed.
Also they have to remember the microseries was made by Tartakovsky, someone who likes exaggerating things to make the events sell hard. Not saying it as a bad thing, but still something to keep in mind when it comes to portrayals as writers and directors all have their preferred way to tell stories
"We may have been exhausted but when was the last time that someone stood up to five jedi and held his own?" Grievous was definetly overpowered in Clone Wars compared to those around him. Ki Adi Mundi, Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura are all high ranking Jedi Masters. He was nerfed either way but something that should have been considered is that he was nerfed in the story too. Clone Wars Grievous didn't have asthma before Windu crushed his torso at the end of the series. This doesn't explain everything but it does tie in nicely with the movie where his first screen appearance is an asthma attack. (" UH! I just swallowed my gum!") The creators said that Grievous was supposed to be a manifastation of fear when they made the show. This seems accurate to Lucas' early plans when you watch the making off from Episode III. They changed his character and his skill. He is just beaten too easily even when you remove the anime power levels from 2003. And there is a difference between a calculated retreat and running away laughing at every chance. 2003 Grievous was a tactician but also presented himself as an honorable fighter. The virgin "Hehehehe... Time to abandon ship." vs The Chad "You have only prolonged the inevitable!"
I always interpreted his debut appearance with two factors: One: we are seeing this play out from the POV of the tired, ragged and very rattled Jedi, which makes this droid seem like he’s this unstoppable force of nature, which is offset by the reinforcement POV that shows Ki Adi STILL able to hold his own AND that the cyber general retreats like any soldier outgunned AND that there WERE survivors in that fight in the end. Two: Grevious probably DID do all this crazy stuff but as a result his joints and components have been overtaxed, a point no doubt made by his own personal doctor droid who would berate him for overtaxing his cyber components and thus Grevious would just have to rely on MORE intimidation factors and ride off the reputation he garnered. A reputation that is SLOWLY waning away EVERYTIME Kenobi gets involved. Also let’s be realistic, Lucas and co gave Genndy VERY little to work with when they gave him sketches of Grevious in the middle of working on Revenge. And since this was a concept made by Lucas and how Grevious is portrayed in most portrayals was HIS call, this was just a one off.
There are a couple of flaws there. 1. Grievous' cybernetics shouldn't be/aren't that delicate that they need to be replaced after a single fight, but even if they were, they could still be replaced. 2. Grievous isn't supposed to meet either Anakin or Obi-wan until Revenge of the Sith. Which is why it took Obi-wan so long to put Grievous down.
@JR-ol9pc When they meet on the bridge of the Invisible Hand, Grievous addresses them both for the first time, even referring to Obi-wan by his title "the Negotiator" in mock formality. The pretense of formality being dropped halfway through addressing Anakin. Furthermore, in the novelization, Mace and Yoda surmise that Obi-wan was the ONLY jedi in the entire order who could defeat Grievous, to Obi-wan's disbelief. Given the context of TCW, where they fight once a week for cheap nostalgic fanservice, this canonical conversion would be impossible.
I still would want a Grievous that at least meet somewhere down the middle where he can still be imposing and intimidating like the micro and legends version and still have characteristics and flaws like him getting into situations in over his head and underestimate his opponent from time to time like EP 3 and TCW version
One thing they unequivocally nerfed from Tartakovsky's depiction was his speed and momentum. Kicking off an Acclamator's interior so hard that his landing generated a shockwave that blew away Jedi Masters at Hypori. Running straight down a sheer face of the Chancellor's apartment quickly enough to outpace a super-fast evacuation elevator. Filoni's Grievous had power, but in terms of pure swiftness, he was an elementary schooler in comparison to Tartakovsky's Usain Bolt.
While you are right that ROTS doesn't contradict CW 2003, TCW definitely does. Not only is Grievous cowardly in that show, but he is also incredibly hot headed and sometimes outright stupid. Also GL never intended for him to be weak, just not for him to be Vader level, and the Nightsisters arc was an example of where TCW made him weak by losing to Ventress. You are right that he did mentally wear down his opponents in Legends, but he did this ROTS as well, not in TCW. In TCW, all he did was cheat, which isn't the same thing. The fact is that TCW portrayed Grievous a lot worse than any other form of media. Even when making the show they said he should be able to handle clones easily, and yet he struggles to fight them in the Lair of Grievous arc and in S3 against the 212th. It is only in S5 that he is at all decent. As for the idea that he wasn't a proper character, that is also incorrect. The other EU writing coming out around the time of Episode 3 made him a pretty clear story. What actually happened was that George thought his backstory was too similar to Vader's.
Did George forget he approved and commissioned Grievous' Legends backstory? 😂 He seems to not able to handle his own employees sometimes and then acts with surprised Pikachu face. Warren Fu, the guy who designed Grievous and worked on Episode 3, made his backstory! George can't blame EU writers for this one, it was one of his team. The guy is now a filmmaker, and would be perfect guy to direct and write a Grievous series.
@@Mega-P71 I never got the issue. Greivous is insanely powerful, a showcase of what cybernetics at the top of the line could do. Vader is that -with- the incredible force powers of the Chosen One. Greivous should be a showcase of the crazy stuff Vader could do with more budget, or that he does in other media
Don't forget that in the Microsereis he ALSO got injured by a Jedi at the battle of Coruscant, which was also why he was originally wheezing in the Revenge of the Sith. Ahsoka probably wasn't terrified because she was overconfident, making her not really fear Greivous. Plus he decided to Brag and not just kill her, thinking Ahsoka wasn't a threat, as a result she escaped.
Ahsoka probably beat him the 2nd time because she knew that after her, were those younglings that while talented, were no match for Grievous, so she had a mission to do: protect the younglings at all costs; There, in her mind, was no time to be afraid. Also that fact that she knew he was coming before hand so she had time to prepare for him mentally, so she was not phased if Grievous tried to scare her, she did in fact use his weakness against him: the force.
That was Mace Windu who injured Greivous just before Episode 3 kicked off time-line wise. Ahsoka's battle with him as you said was a mixture of both of them being too confident. As a result, Ahsoka wasn't intimidated by him and Grievous didn't take her seriously. Under normal circumstances the outcome would have been very different.
@@kylepessell1350 Don't forget in his next appearance he promptly shot a Freshly minted Jedi Knight using one of his extra arms. Seemingly learning his lesson to not toy around with an opponent.
Ahsoka survived Grievous because of bad writing, plain and simple. Mentally prepared or not, Grievous would have just killed her and been done with it.
@@bluehero-96 That 2nd fight was in season 5, and you say that was bad writing. Her mental preparedness was what Grievous was not wanting her to be, he wanted her off balanced like the Jedi at Hypori were.
My biggest issue with his portrayal in TCW isn't that he's willing to make a sensible retreat, so much as the writing for him as the mustache twirling villain in the majority of cases. As well as Anakin, Obiwan and especially Ahsoka in particular not having the fear factor within them even early on. TCW picks up relatively early in the Clone Wars before Grievous was supposed to have been actually well known. Taking into account that the battle of Hypori was actually the first real encounter with him that ended with survivors and he wasn't known as the grand leader of CIS forces due to the likes of Sevrance Tann being the leader at the time. Before her intentional assassination due to mistrust by Palpatine. Point being ultimately. He wasn't shown to his true potential in many situations due to being able to be distracted and temporarily stalled by Ahsoka rather than just carving her up, bashing droids like it was comic relief, and not even Anakin or Obiwan being intimidated at any point just made him feel like a caricature more often than not. When dealing with Jedi we only get a small number of encounters where there's fear involved. Plus when adding Episode 3 into the context, suddenly Obiwan and Anakin being familiar to Grievous by reputation only makes zero sense suddenly. In the MOVIE of all things. Could easily have kept him separate from the pair in face to face combat without sacrificing or limiting his use.
It was only truly established that he’d never met Anakin before Sure certain lines do make it obvious that it was intended that he’d never met obiwan before but said dialogue still works even if they have met You gotta stretch your logic a bit for one line in particular but it can still kinda work Yeah I love the 2008 series but I’ll concede that this one complaint is valid. But it’s the only one that’s valid. The only one.
Well pre 2008 Grievous was almost invincible in combat. Kenobi and perhaps Anakin are said to be the only Jedi who stand a chance against him. Even Windu admitted inferiority.
@@tayyc I mean to be fair that’s only cause he was fucking around. I mean look at that scene he doesn’t even try to kill any of them, he’s just flexing. And when he does kill one fuckers still holding his weapon as he picks him up Short answer the gun guns got lucky
I remember always being scared shitless by Grievous when I watched TCW as a kid, especially in the Grievous' lair episode. Him being so "cowardly" makes you hate him even more, and even if you had already watched ROTS his fights with Obi-Wan and the other Jedi always had you on the edge of your seat. He's the best cartoonish childrens' TV villain TCW could have asked for with him being menacing, hateable but also funny at times. Also what I like about his appearance in ROTS is that even tho he isn't any fleshed out antagonist character he still kinda has a purpose in the movie. Imo his appearances on the Invisible Hand and on Utapau are such cool and badass fights that they actually make you miss the Clone Wars era even though you should actually be happy for the characters that the war is over. He always brought that light hearted "Tom and Jerry feeling" to the show, but what follows after his death is arguably even worse than the Clone Wars.
Think about it like this: As a Jedi, you would be keenly aware of, not only your surroundings but, the emotions of others. You can walk into a room and sense the moods of others in it like an average joe could walk into the room and sense someone cooking bacon. Now imagine what sensing Grievous would be like, before seeing him: Untold anger and pain, as well as a devestation that would leave you wondering how he was alive at all, let alone moving with such speed. Hilariously, I compare it to a waste water treatment plant. Walking in for the first time is like *_"OH GOD,"_* where the people who work there (your Anakin's and Obi-Wan's) are like, "You get used to it, _even though you _*_NEVER_*_ get used to it!"_
The un-nerfed version was so powerful mace windo was affraid to fight him because he would learn vapad and use it against the jedi. Imagine if thay plotline was in the clone wars.
Grievous has always been one of my favorite characters but also the most frustrating because of how much potential he had. The thing that always gets me the most is that in 90% of the fights where he’s wielding 4 lightsabers, he either doesn’t use them all or moves them in the EXACT SAME POSITION. Like at least once I’d like to see him fight someone, hit them with two of his sabers and make them block it, only to hit them with a third one from a direction they can’t dodge in time. They made a villain who looks absolutely menacing and gave him this incredible advantage but knew they couldn’t let him use it or else the story wouldn’t unfold the way it’s supposed to. Like I said he’s still one of my favorite characters in Star Wars but it’s large cause of that pity I have for him with how much of his potential was tossed aside
I think even the legends Grievous would know when his odds aren't in his favor, so the canon Grievous would make some sense. And a plus, he has more character which is what it is needed. Sure he can have good moments of being capable of curbstomping anything in his way when it is in his favor.
And one of the downsides of Grievous's tactics (besides if you weren't intimidated by them) was, as Dooku regularly points out to Grievous, that his tactics were sloppy and imprecise. He preferred using an overwhelming barrage of baffling bullshit over a precise, well-coordinated plan or attack pattern. He did precision very well on Hypori, where he had a massive element of surprise, but once the Jedi started to get a feel for his style, they learned that a bit of precision was all they needed to best Grievous, which is I think why Obi-Wan was so well-matched against Grievous, because he was that careful, precise Jedi.
I think he was capable of much at least a bit more nuance in his style before TCW. Back when he'd open battles with two arms and keep the extras in reserve rather than open with his gambit. It makes sense for Obiwan of all folks to find the precision needed, most Jedi wouldn't have had the chance to learn in time before dying or getting critically injured though, the General always seemed to have another surprise in his best confrontations.
Canon Grievous: This town isn't big enough for two super villains! Legends Grievous: Oh, you're a villain, alright. Just not a super one. Canon Grievous: Yeah? What's the difference? Legends Grievous: Presentation!
I think this video underplays Grievous's strength ,speed and durability. Fear, suprise and antimadation were definitely not the only things he had going for him. Still a great video though.
Grievous also seemed to be nerfed in RoTS and CW, because earlier Windu crushed his ribcage, a near-fatal blow that he never recovered from, that left him a bit weaker, gave him the iconic cough and presented a problem for him - if someone were to know that his lungs were organic (because it was not a well known fact) and that they were also his weak point (apart from, well, head) and utilized that knowledge, he'd be at a massive disadvantage. Having harder time fighting and still being a formittable foe that can easily make a salad out of you actually show that he was still quite the danger.
Windu crushed his ribcage AFTER the entirety of his TCW appearance. Windu crushing his ribcage at the battle of coruscant (that same one from Revenge of the Sith) does not excuse him being an entirely different character in the entirety of TCW.
I have never understood why people critisize Grievous for retreating. Dooku retreats too, but no one seems to care and the Jedi still respect him as a swordsman and take him seriously as a threat, but when Grievous retreats, he's a coward? I don't get it. Kit Fisto even retreated from a duel with Grievous, but people give stuff like that a pass and wouldn't dare call Jedi cowards for retreating.
I would have to respectfully disagree. While I agree for some of your points regarding the 2003 CW, looking into the lore such as labyrinth of evil, general grievous comics or the republic comic series, grievous easily despatched jedi even in situations where they were not intimidated or surprised, see the battle of salucami where it was the CIS who were surprised. His tactical inability in TCW is also a predominant issue, throughout all the prior lore he was a genius, tearing his way through the republic with his mind as the leader of the droid armies, TCW afforded only trench as a competent strategist and even had comments mocking the generals ability such as obi wan saying “not even grievous would attack this recklessly.” The final point is that TCW also did nothing to add to the personality of grievous, he became 2D; his only personality traits being laughing, coughing and scowling. To compound this error, TCW even changed his backstory, turning him from a compelling tragic character who’s fall to cybernetics mirrored anakins, to a whiny warrior who hates the jedi for no other reason than they wouldn’t allow him to join the order.
"Unfortunatly they took from his 2D precursor nothing that made him special, then his precursor outshined him in his sleep. Ironic. They could make his apperance 3D but not himself."
I see your points, but I don't agree with them. Animation style is only the looks and flare of the motion. The same scene can have different animation styles, but the events that transpire should still be the same. How can we not say that Grievous didn't get nerfed if he went from an unrelenting fighter that killed more jedi in two battles than in the rest of the war? That stopped being fast, unpredictable and a master of his machine body to be slow, one-trick-ponny that only managed to win fights against padawans and barely used his own body as an advantage? You don't have to make a character less relentless or less unstoppable to make it deeper and more complex. Wasn't Vader like that? Strong fighters can also be cowards, make him truly competent and aggressive when he is winning, and then make him turn tail as soon as he feels he is beginning to lose; give him some real victories against jedi and in big battles instead of constantly frustrate his shenanigans as if he were the Team Rocket.
And don't even make me even argue the forgotten depth the Grievous had before, the specific hatred he had towards the jedi and his origin. Exploring that would've give him true depth as a character, real reason to be an antagonist instead of the evil-just-because character we ended up having.
It's kind of sad how far Grevious has fallen, after all, like Kit Fisto said, "You were a proud warrior once! But now you're nothing more than a pawn in Dooku's game!" That proud Kaleesh Warrior he once was died a long time ago, now he's just a machine that thinks proud warriors are fools. In a way, despite not being Force-sensitive, he is very reflective of what happens to those that fall to the Dark Side, he's given up everything he use to care about his honor, pride, his people, all that stuff that actually makes life worth living, and now all he cares about is victory and power, but without any of that other stuff it's all meaningless at the end of the day because it proves nothing without the other elements. It's like what Obi-Wan told him, "What does all the talking get you. A futile quest for power? A mutilated body? You're place as Dooku's errand boy?" Because at the end of the day, despite all the power and victory he wields, he is just a second bannan in all this, despite his boasts of how he is the greatest, since he has to cheat to win fights, so he's not the best he's second or even lower on the totem poll. Which is all sad given how much I do like Grevious, his introduction at the Battle of Hypori, his battles with Obi-Wan, the Battle of Dathomir, and him chasing Shaak Ti and the others all great stuff.
The three moments in Clone Wars where Grevious felt a bit like his old self, is first in the opening of Grievous Intrigue when he's boarding Koth's ship, when he cuts through the door, kicks it down, and it's launched across the holotable and kills a clone. Bro killed someone just by entering the room. I could also say that whole episode felt more like old Grievous than usual just because of how desperate everyone is to capture him and especially to keep him on Obi-Wan's ship when he tries to escape. It makes him feel like much more of a big deal than he's usually portrayed. Second is the second to last episode in the youngling arc from season 5 in the brief sequence where he's seen on board Obi-Wan's ship and he plows through a group of clones pretty quickly and in a pretty stylish way that brings back some memories of when he killed all the clones in Palpatine's office in the miniseries. And then of course the scene from the Crystal Crisis arc where he effortlessly beats Obi-Wan. That or the moment where he just straight up beheads the arms dealer. That was one of a very few moments where he was actually intimidating.
I think that your take is a little off. He is a horror villain, but you can make that into a character. When he speaks make it profound. Sometimes choosing when to speak and when not to speak is far more profound. Being focused and is terrifying. Retreating is a tactical choice and it doesn't have to look cowardly. The way the clone wars does it well.... he looks pathetic. Also putting him up again Ashoka makes him look even worse.
When people say he was needed they mean, or at least what I mean, is his representation. I’m canon he is still regarded as a deadly opponent and Jedi hunter, we just never really see it. When he fights Obi wan we never actually see him do anything or build up how much of a threat he is. He is just kind of thrown in like “check out this cool character design”. I’m ok if they wanted to make him of if a classic cartoon villain, but they should at least give him enough to where he remains a threat.
I do disagree that depth was added in the 2008 and RotS. Lucas stripped most of the compelling and complex backstory of the Jedi wronging his people by favoring the corrupt Republic bureaucrats that were allowing the Huk to exploit the Kaleesh homeworld simply because they weren't members of the Republic. It removed his nuanced reluctance to adopt the cybernetics save through manipulation and last resort, the modification of his own brain without his knowledge and the reasons for his sheer brutality. How thanks to his unique background and Dooku's inside knowledge of the Jedi, Grievous was tailor made to kill Jedi, racking up 147 Jedi kills during the Clone Wars directly and indirectly. In the 2008 series he just 'wanted to improve himself' and was jealous of the Jedi since they didn't let him be one. That's a pitifully pale shadow of what his lore was previously.
Okay so I just read the canon backstory and the legends backstory back to back and they’re really not that different In both cases greivious was horrifically injured then submitted to the changes as basically his only option and never learned that the attack was planned by his supposed allies The only noteworthy difference is that legends goes more in depth with what happened before that by talking about the Yamari AKA the Huk
I would argue that Grievous is even more tragic than Vader. While Vader was able to redeem himself, Grievous was killed before he could even learn the truth about what happen to him!
@macwade2755 I 100% agree. Just didn't know if saying Grevious was more tragic was a hot take. Grevious was told it was the jedi who did that to him when in reality it was his master who ironically was a former jedi. Crazy manipulation.
One could argue that he is even more so than Anakin. It's the same age old question: What's more tragic? The fact that your downfall is due to your own actions? Or the realization that whatever the action, your demise was inevitable?
Huh, this is true--General Grievous always did what he was meant to do; Fight and win through any means necessary. I do love him for all that he's been due to the fact that he is the EXACT polar opposite of the Jedi; He's cruel, calculating, and dishonorable--he was always the perfect opponent for any Jedi in the Clone Wars.
You absolutely can take a horror monster aspect of it and you can still characterize that. Quiet is a defining character trait, as is brooding, menacing, or mechanical. As is patient, which 2003 Grievous undoubtedly was. I'd argue it would work better in portraying him that way throughout Revenge of the Sith as an aspect of Vader, the almost soulless, droid-like monster with a cold, emotionless voice which assaults Anakin and Kenobi from the shadows before being beaten off and deciding to crash the ship in a silent vengeance. Something of that effect would work more to build him up as a threat for those who haven't seen him in the 2003 cartoon and symbolize that edge of Vader. Implement some variant of cough, which almost certainly was made as a way to call back to Vader's breathing, in a more menacing way. Only show him as a character in his dying moments. I think that would be more effective. Revenge of the Sith is brilliant, one of the best of the Star Wars films and has some of the best moments in film history, but it is not unblemished. A way you could really do this is by showing Kenobi have a little growth between the first encounter and the second, where the first Kenobi is taken by surprise against Grievous and shows a slight anxiety about it alongside Anakin showing some himself after the surprise, forced to defend Palpatine, the heart of the Republic, and off-balanced could justify such a reaction from the two. Then Kenobi approaches Grievous entirely calm in the second conflict as he takes him alone, this could be reflected with Anakin stewing in his fear of losing Padme. Clone Wars 2008 absolutely does nerf him. I don't think that's arguable, he get beaten by younglings. You can't dismiss this as just a result of mediocre writing. Clone Wars 2008 was largely poorly written when it comes to villains (beside Palpatine himself), lore, continuity, and many other issues. Good stories generally but some of the weakest world building in the franchise, at times worse for the health of the story than Hand of Vader. His strategies are usually poor and he doesn't really do his terms. The 2008 cartoon had him outsmarted at almost every turn, and you also similarly can't use a completely cancelled episode in as a point.
I think I disagree. They gave Grievous defining traits in the first animated series. Then instead of writing around those traits to fit the themes of the film, they overwrote them. You can characterize quiet, intimidating characters. You can overcome overwhelmingly strong antagonists. Horror movies do both often. Hell, fantasy fiction does both often as well. The antagonists there don't start losing to everyone and their mom when the heroes find a way to fight back
YES! they gave defining Traits. there was a character there! legends grievous was not shallow just because he was portrayed as an overwhelming opponent! heck, the legends comics gave him a wonderful backstory that Lucas tossed out the window for being a Saturday cartoon villain cause "too similar to vader."
@@ikrIkarus You're absolutely right! And if you watch Tartakovsky's other works, you'll notice he doesn't employ a lot of dialogue in general. He much prefers to have his animation do the storytelling for him!
@@billyholland5156 I liked the old backstory way more. It shown that he originally fought with honor and never really planned to by augmented with cyborg parts. Reminds me a lot of Adam Jensen from the later dues ex games. He only became a cyborg thanks to an attack on the company he was working on. And frankly I think Grivious becomes a much more interesting character if he had honor to begin with, and looses it thanks to the chips they put in his brain and the endless battles of the clone wars, that warp his perspective on everything. His original backstory also gave him a reason to hate the Jedi before he ever became a cyborg. They helped this bug race enslave his people. With his new backstory Dooku basically went "You want more power?" And Grivious was like "K. Sounds cool." and joined the separatists.
The 03 Clone Wars (aka, the good one) fits Legends Grievous into the Movies just fine. With his health and faction failing during the Battle of Coruscant, and fighting Obi-wan for the FIRST time on Utapau, it's easy to see the once great Jedi hunter quickly decline.
I respect the opinion of this video... With that being said it's WRONG. Greivous was nerfed. You said yourself in the way he was written he was nerfed. Also alot of citations about him in this video are false. I won't rebuttal all of them just the one that irritates me the most: Dooku stated Grevious needs those three tactics to succeed against the BEST of the Jedi, NOT ALL OF THEM. I'm sick & tired of ppl misinterpreting that scene. Greivous is not limited to those means. These are simply psychological weapons that Greivous was taught to use by the person who literally used to be a Jedi. Mace Windu in the microseries had an absurd amount of physical space to accomplish his Force Crush move on Greivous, not 2 lightsabers spinning at 360 RPM in his face! In the Labrynth Of Evil novel he fought Windu one on one no Magnagaurds, & even Windu thought to himself that it might not be the smartest decision to continue fighting this guy longer than necessary. Trust & believe Windu had no time to crush his chestplate in that brief encounter. Characters were not OP in the microseries they were Lore accurate
Hm, fair and valid points and opinions, Grievous has always been one of my favorites, so i really appreciate this Video. I really do wish we could’ve gotten more from him though.
Same. I would love to see a better middle ground for him. Keep George's vision of him being a moustache twirling villain, but at least give him moments to sell he's quite a terrifying menace against his opponents while showing emphasis of the 3 conditions he must have to beat them
I would love an open world clone wars game where you can side with the republic or seperatists. Maybe have a part where you can be helped, or attacked by magna guards and clone commandos. Could also make a horror game where youre a padawan or apprentice trapped in greivous' compund having to constantly outrun him
I disagree that Grievous could not be written as a horror movie villain. He does not have to be a force of nature all the time, though. Grievous is a brilliant strategist and tactician, and he would know when being relentless and pushing his strength to the max while toying with the Jedi is his best move. He could have been written largely the same in TCW (his dialogue is largely fine) but with more battle scenes showing his performance in a vein similar to Admiral Trench. His competence is shown plenty, but the Jedi almost always are shown as being one step ahead. Of course, they want to show the protagonists winning on screen, but with an entire series to focus on a 3 year war, why couldn’t Grievous and the droid army have had several episodes where they dominated? I think that detracts from the depth of the show, whereas taking advantage of Grievous’ potential as a horror monster could have been immensely entertaining if executed like the 2003 series, just with the appropriate tempo. Final note: Grievous is a fascinating character because he combines the warrior code of the Jedi, the passion and hatred of the Sith, and a battle IQ not too far distant from Thrawn*. He is not the peak of any one of these things, but being all of them makes them unique. Showcasing them makes his character what we love, and TCW simply puts more emphasis on fleshing out the protagonists and certain other protagonists. That’s not all bad, but it was a disservice to our general. *”Never have we been outmaneuvered by droids. His strategy is without flaw.” Shaak Ti, on General Grievous
6:38 I managed to turn on its head by making Chort Dalmatian related to Chernabog himself Chort is a different type of monster one horror villain that does exist in the real world, except for the part where she is a Dalmatian the only medical work that real dogs really do is be an assistant.
If one has to choose between the Clones Wars series being the "kids' show" that we know or the borderline horror series similar to Attack on Titan, which one should be chosen? If the latter is chosen, the people will get the Grievous they desired but it won't be the same Clones Wars we all know and love.
6:03 even so he's clearly powerful enough to fight to a draw with Windu in Labyrinth of Evil ( yeah ik Windu crushed his chest in the 2003 series but even so ), and Dooku doesn't teach him everything to keep an edge over him, he bodies Ventress and Durge something he can't replicate in the 2008 series to say the least...
I love how no in no matter what medium Grievous' whole body can be a weapon, his arms of course can make for a rapid assault using four blades to overwhelm lesser Jedi especially after a drawn-out engagement, but he also uses his legs and feet on occasion using them to kick, and grab opponents especially when said opponents have managed to get behind him, we even see him crush the chest of a clone in an episode of not only as a show of strength but also as an intimidation tactic.
This is Canon for me! General Grievous is my favorite character! Please do more videos on him! I do hope that one day we get some more portrayals of Grievous in the horror villain style!
I don’t find Grievous running away as evidence that he was nerfed. In the micro-series, Dooku actually told Grievous, “If you are to succeed in combat against the best of the Jedi, you must have fear, surprise, and intimidation on your side. But if any one element is lacking, it would be best for you to retreat.” The bigger issue is that if you’re going to have the big bad on screen with the protagonists, you’re gonna need a way for those protagonists to make it out alive to fight again. This could’ve been addressed with more solo Grievous episodes, but I imagine a little kid might not be too excited to watch a monster slaughter anybody, let alone Jedi, the icons of heroism in Star Wars.
I most certainly agree with your argument and to the fact that Gen. Grievous is well aware of his strengths and weaknesses and plays them to his advantage is one of the main reasons why I like him as a character. What I don't like is what they made his character out to be. In the mini series, you did get that sense that he was more machine than man with how little he talked and how driven he is toward a single objective. If they had kept that aspect of him and incorporated some of his background. Like how before he became a cyborg, he was an honorable warlord on his homeworld of Kaleesh. But from years of his people's suffering and the fact that the Republic, and in turn the Jedi, were responsible for most of it. I think everyone would have a far better take on the character than they do today. Plus, it would have given Grievous a much stronger tie to Darth Vader than them being cyborgs.
There was a pilot in WW2 that had more confirmed kills than the American sniper Chris Kyle. The reason this pilot was so good was "if the enemy seen him first he would use his plane's superior speed to retreat, he was like a hunter stalking his pray before he attacked from their blind spot" Honorable duels are great to watch but that will NEVER happen in war. My uncle use to say "if you're in a fair fight you screwed up"
finally! someone who dosen't just say that 2003 grievous is the best and 2008 grievous sucks. but actually understand him as a character, how he is a smart fighter with some weaknesses. people often forget that the 2003 series exaggerates the characters power level because that's the direction the show wanted to go with. and am definitely a grievous enjoyer
also TCW started out with the intention of being a super kid friendly show, so for the first and maybe second season things played out safe and light hearted, as expected for shows aimed toward kids. It's only in later seasons that the show was allowed to show more mature and darker things to make the stories much more nuanced and exciting
He was definitely nerfed a bit. Windu crushing his chest and giving him his iconic cough made him weaker and he had to flee more rather than fight. He couldnt intimidate as easily as he did before because not many Jedi were intimidated by a wheezing cyborg.
Something that should not be forgotten, like force unleashed, everything in the 2003 clone wars serie was over the top, remember windu fighting an entire army of droid with his bare hands ? Or Anakin going solo against thousand and thousands of ships, everything in that show was crazy insane
Regardless of the scenario, Grievous will always be one of my favorite Star Wars villains. 2003 blew me away and it was great to see him on the silver screen a couple years later. And he lost his chest to Windu cause it takes more than 4 arms to scare the Bad Motherfucker
"Why is Grievous so weak and always coughing like he's got TB in the movie? He wasn't like that in the cartoon!" I always hated this comment. He literally got Force crushed by Mace Windu in the cartoon as he escaped with Palpatine. Maybe if more people actually watched the cartoon, and not just his first appearance, they'd know that.
Let's be honest for a moment, some of Grievous defeats in TCW are understandable; for example the gungans defeated him after he defeated one of his generals, in a battle, and that general took the chance to stab Grievous and heavily damage him and then it occurred the Episode I strategy with the droids... but if Grievous hadn't under estimated the gungans he could have easily won that battle, or most of his encounters with Ahsoka sums up in her trying to escape from the general in some way, it may look goofy in TCW but I see it the same way as I would see the ewoks in Episode VI. Anyway, when I think of Grievous is like someone that would take any chance to survive so his portrayal/power has not really changed from the 2003 series due to the fact that Dooku trained Grievous with those tactics in mind; Grievous is first an opportunistic and then a power house.
Great video! Though I have to say, he technically did lose some powers. In the micro series he was able to spin his body in ways he could not in later appearances, and used his fight to duel as well, though you could argue that was just more of the show's artistic style and taking liberties.
7 місяців тому+1
This still doesn't justify them changing his personality
I like when Grievous showed up TCW because a lot of the time when he escaped it was on 6 limbs and moved like he was some kind of spider, made him kind of freaky. The only way he could have been made scarier would be if he had lightsabers with Ghostfire and Lorridian Crystals. (Edit, additional info to give nightmares)
General Grievous if done right wouldve been the perfect mix of psychological warfare personified. I feel that one episode in TCW did a decent job of this and outlined his potential it was the one where Kit fisto and the other jedi (I can’t remember the name of) were responding to a distress signal on a foggy planet and once they got there it was desolate no resistance at first and it built from there
I think its also important to point out, by the time of revenge of the Sith, the republic is already well aware of who GG is and operates, just like any new villain their introduction is usaly one of there most impressive display, before the "heroes" learn how to fight them
I mean when u think about it when u see a new villain in a series they are written as a terror in the story but as u keep reading the villain becomes less terrifing as u learn about them
I would love to see a revision of Grievous’ backstory where he is still a Kaleesh warlord, but in his hunt for power and victory he loses to a Jedi opponent. He is discovered by Dooku and demands to be trained in the Jedi arts but fundamentally fails due to a weak force-connection. To compensate he begins making mechanical modifications, funded by Dooku of course, and slowly becomes the malevolent machine we know him to be in the Clone Wars. This would make more sense for his character while still retaining key elements of his legends history.
When Grievous was facing his equals of course it would make sense for him to flee he’s existence was to cause as much destruction as he could which he can’t do if he was bound to thinks like honor. There are a few times in the clone wars where i’m not sure how he lost but most times anyone less than him was brutally destroyed.
I would also add that the Clone Wars puts Grievous up against too many Jedi that need to survive because they're in Revenge of the Sith, or it puts him in too many situations where if he doesn't run, he'll die, like the Malevolence about to go hyperspace into a moon, or his listening outpost crashing and burning around him. Or pitting him against Jedi like Kit Fisto and Eeth Koth.
With the fight with the Gungans, the General from “The Phantom Menace” had to sacrifice himself so that his men could take Grievous down. He actually seemed to be winning until that moment.
2003 clone wars only showed Grevious in like two encounters. One very early in the war and one near the end of the war. TCW showed basically all his defeats throughout the war with the occasional victory. I mean the man had so many lightsabers on him and in display cases.
For Revenge of the Sith, one thing I feel needs to be remembered is that Obi-Wan was surrounded by droids, a single volley and only plot armor could save him. Despite this, Grievous chose to 1v1 and only retreated when clones arrived. I thought the fight could've been better if he just didn't lose two hands in the first minute, and instead of trying to run away form the battle completely, he maybe retreated to a secluded dark area or something, maybe have Obi-Wan lose sight of him and all he can hear is Grievous's footsteps. It would've thrown a bone to 2003 Clone Wars fans, shown his terror side without relying on him being as overpowered, and made Obi-Wan's eventual victory all the more triumphant. As for the Gungans, I've heard some people defend it by pointing out that they had EMP weapons and Gungans are warriors and Jar-Jar is an exception not the norm. For the former, I say blasters are efficient against most things and that alone won't win you a fight, and as for the latter, that's true but so are the clones. Sure in real life no amount of skill can survive being outnumbered that badly, but for something like Star Wars, I expect any major warrior character, to not get hit, let alone defeated that easily when the enemy even takes turns for him.
I think one way that might’ve helped his portrayal in the Clone Wars would be to have limited his appearances a bit. He can be around, giving orders and such, but every once in a while he gets a “I’ll do it myself” moment and that’s when shit hits the fan and you know things are serious, not unlike Maul’s escape in season 7, or Vader’s hallway scene in Rogue One. The Crystal Crisis arc would’ve done wonders for him on its own. Unfortunately in the show, Grievous only wins when the plot wants the heroes to lose. Additionally, kind of like what you mentioned, the circumstances regarding how they could portray grievous in clone wars 2008 changed and were more limited. However I do believe the writers could have done a better job writing around grievous. In the 2003 Clone Wars Grievous was a threat taken seriously, but the response from the Jedi in CW 2008 is kind of an eye roll and “grievous again? Alright let’s go chase him.” They wouldn’t be able to have a scene like in 2003 when Grievous abducts Palpatine. If they did the Jedi would be toasting that Grievous came to them because every time he comes up the Jedi are chomping at the bit to “catch Grievous.”
My favorite portrayal of Grevious is from the Revenge of the sith novel. He has a chapter about him, and they go into his psyche and emotional state. He is still called cowardly, which i disagree with, but they really show how droidish and unfeeling he is. I love the way the novel puts. "He doesn't breathe. He doesn't eat. He can not laugh and does not cry." While his 'Saturday morning cartoon' personality is very entertaining, i pefer a Grevious who is unfeeling almost to the point of being like the droids he despises. Despite his emotional stoicism, he is shown to be scared of Obi wan and Anakin, showing his emotions are not entirely gone. To once again quote the novel. "He remembers anger. He remembers anger and frustration. He remembers grief and sorrow. He doesn’t actually feel them. Not anymore. He's not...designed for it."
I’m really glad that changed Grievous’ character for the movie and 2008 series. I never liked his 03 counterpart just basically being a discount Vader. I preferred how much more personality and character they gave him later on.
Much more they gave him a bit more it’s still a cheesy Saturday morning villian personality. Now Darth maul had a big personality shift. Also other then him being tall, intimidating, and robot voice he’s still different from darth vader. Like they don’t fight similar at all
I think some of the "Loser Grievous" aspects on Filoni's Clone Wars are for one exclusive reason: TCW are the Clone Wars as the Republic Propaganda under Palpatine depicts the war. We're seeing and hearing the Clone Wars in a cartoony way from the Republic & Jedi's perspective, heroically narrated in a way similar to Legend of Korra's 20-40s radio news style. They're depicting the Separatists and Grievous as one-dimensional saturday morning cartoon villains that have no rhyme or reason and are easily foiled without casualties (most of the time). Look at how badass and cool we are, and how pathetic these alien Seps are! But that's only one part of Palpatine's manipulative propaganda. The other half was depicting the Separatists and Grievous for the absolute terrifying threat they were, because the whole point of the Clone Wars was scaring and radicalizing the Republic until it becomes the Empire, so that the galaxy never has to fight evil sorcerer tyrants and evil cyborg monsters like Dooku and Grievous and their faceless metal-clad armies ever again. All under the protection of Emperor Palpatine, his cyborg commander Darth Vader and their legions of Stomtroopers! :D The middle ground truth is that Grievous IS nigh unstoppable to most Jedi, but not to the degree implied by his fight with Ki-Adi Mundi's group in Hypori. Dooku trained him to use surprise and psychological warfare to mentally disarm the Jedi, and Grievous knows that more focused Jedi like Obi-Wan and Windu will wreck his shit with the Force if given the chance (which is EXACTLY what Windu did to him pre-Revenge of the Sith, TWICE in the old EU; once in Boz Pit, then again in Coruscant). He's the General of the Droid Armies, so he NEEDS to retreat and fight another day. He's only a coward from the Jedi's perspective; also, Grievous WAS a honorable warrior before being crippled and turned into a Cyborg, and he blames the Jedi for it all. He has NO reason to be honorable towards the Jedi from where he stands. He treats them and the Republic as the loathsome pests that doomed his world and destroyed his body. I would also argue that a lot of the "nerfs" in Star Wars have to do with the medium they're portrayed in. Games, comics and stylized cartoons are much better at depicting the full power of characters like the Jedi, the Sith and General Grievous. Movies and realistic cartoons, however, have a much harder time making those come across without looking goofy, surreal or poorly animated. Which is also why we don't see Windu crushing entire Droid Armies with his bare hands or he and Palpatine Flash-Stepping all over the room during their lightsaber duel in Revenge of the Sith.
hey, the theory that he was weakened in episode 3, I like that theory (the end of the clone wars cartoon, how Vindu squeezed his organs, that he was seriously injured and that's why she coughed so much) 😿
I never like the idea that the force conquers all. I always wanted to believe that a smart person with the right equipment was equal to a jedi or even better than them. It frustrated me a little that they Powered down grievious . But I do understand the authors and a good portion of the fan base demanding that the force conquers all. That said I never mind a person retreating from a fight they will loose.
I agree with this notion! Although the force at highest peaks is capable of some insane things, even council level characters should be in danger of a properly skilled forced user with the right skills weapons and even exotic anatomy. So many people bring up how easy it should be to force crush grievous from the start but forget he was dodging force attacks like more than half the time Jedi tried it. Worse, they never even ask why characters Like Jango never get force crushed despite fight fighting Jedi like kenobi...despite killing *6* Jedi with his bare hands and some snow!
He’s a horror villain to his opponents when he has the advantage. His first appearance had a battle all go his way and he cleaned house, 99% casualties no clones lived. When he was on equal footing or at a disadvantage he played smart and was willing to dip. He played with his food but only when he felt confident he wouldn’t lose it as a result. Calculating like the droid that he is.
Grievouses role in the grand scheme I think was to basically be the fall guy for all the horrors of the war, so his tasks were to strike fear and do war crimes then flee.
Rlm made the point that Revenge of the Sith didnt give him a good outing unless you kinda watched clone wars you came into that movie not knowing who the hell he was and it would have been better if you saw him doing horrible things in the war which would make his death at the hands of Obi Wan more impactful
The clone wars cartoon in 03 had the habit of over exaggerating, a lot of battles and powers. The original vision of George is that grievous is a great warrior, but he’s a coward when he’s cornered.
Legends Grievous was awesome, but seeing him standing tall on screen in front of Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor was absolutely spectacular
I like the "I thought you would be taller" line in the movie, when you go back and see, for all the universe, Anakin _never_ actually gets face to face with Grievous through the Clone Wars, until the movie, lol
@@landonletterman831a fact Dave Filoni ALWAYS brings up. You can feel that he was ACHEING to do a story where Anakin and Grevious face off with their skill and mindset laid bare. But he was Lucas’s protege and was wanting to stick to the canon made in the films. Ah~ the road not taken…
Your shorter then i expected Lol
@@jessesworld4202 I don't read it/watch it a lot, I didn't look it up, and you knew what I meant.
The magic of colloquialism
@@landonletterman831 It's "you're shorter than I expected," but good effort
General Grievous's most notable casualty was taking out Shaggy before he even clash lightsabers with him.
And he barely used 4% of his power.
Velma: Admit it, Shaggy. You lost to Grievous!
Shaggy: Like, I'll have you know, Velma. He, like, got the jump on me! Literally!
But could he take the One Jump Man...?
I love general grievous so much he and his people deserve more star wars content
I always think the same Grievous is so cool character and kaleesh culture could be explored more
The Kaleesh war against the empire needs more light. I never seen a rather primitive species utterly shit all over a technological and militaristic juggernaut like they did.
He is one of the best villains ever brought to film may e even media. I love him. This video is great!
Disney wouldn’t expand upon his people, they’re too warlike and don’t promote the messages they love to pander.
@@mythrick7109yeah true but what about the first order being more space nazi than the empire.
The real problem with TCW wasn't that they nerfed Grievous compared to the 2003 version; it was that all of his badass moments and wins were offscreen while his losses were kept front and center.
All those lightsabers had to come from somewhere, and if he was as incompetent all the time as he was on screen (like say, when he got his mechanical rear handed to him by Gungans) then the Clone Wars would have ended in a month.
@@thedarkknightdetective2559Obi wan is also the best user of soresus defense so its a wall that no even 4 lightsabers could pass, any other jedi would strugle more against the droid army general.
Totaly true. Grievous was though by Dooku and Sidious as an threat to scary the galaxy and distract the jedi from palpatines plans and political movements so it makes sense to me that a horror simbol like grievous should be scarier like in the 2003.
to be fair, what are people supposed to conclude when TCW G's failures are the front and focus of everything? but aside from that, he was definitely nerfed. even simply scrutinizing TCW G's individual duels and tactics with the old G's individual duels and battles, and you realize that the idea that these are same people DOESN'T remotely hold up.
Its no secret that, no matter how good TCW was, the show had a huge, huge Republic/Jedi bias. Its not just Grievous, its also Dooku and the CIS as a whole that got "nerfed" and presented one-dimensionaly, especially the early seasons.
Even the later seasons that incorporated more of the dark side of the Republic and Jedi Order, never did anything like that for the other side.
Its still a great show, but you just have keep the bias in mind when watching it, otherwise you just get a wrong impression of The Clone Wars (the era) and their characters.
@@LegioXXI agreed so hard with this! TCW was a good show, but everything felt more surface level for the other side.
From what I read apparently George Lucas didn’t like Grievous’s Legends backstory, as he felt it was too similar to Vader’s backstory and felt that he should be a moustache twirling type of villain. Because of that people have often criticized him for that as he was criticized from the prequel trilogy from back then
i don't blame them. the legend's backstory was, despite being similar to Vader's backstory, a much richer character than what we ended up with later on, and portrayed in a much more competent manner. its hard to like replacing a badass with a deep backstory with a cackling cardboard cutout that folds in the face of opposition.
Good job fandom…
Did George forget he approved and commissioned Grievous' Legends backstory? 😂 He seems to not able to handle his own employees sometimes and then acts with surprised Pikachu face. Warren Fu, the guy who designed Grievous and worked on Episode 3, made his backstory! George can't blame EU writers for this one, it was one of his team.
The guy is now a filmmaker, and would be perfect guy to direct and write a Grievous series.
That was a huge mistake on George’s part. He already had a mustache twirling old school villain in the form of Dooku. Grievous is suppose to be Dooku’s attack dog, not a mustache twirling old villain. You gotta put the right elements on the right characters, and Grievous being the aforementioned type of villain simply doesn’t suite him.
Well, that's ironic considering that Lucas said that he wanted Grievous to represent the flaws of cybernetics and be a predecessor to Vader.
I think the horror movie villain portrayal could have still worked. For the bulk of his time on screen, have him in a command center giving orders and only confronting the heroes directly when it becomes absolutely necessary. This way we get the best of both worlds. The cunning and cruel commander who cackles as his forces commit one atrocity after another and the horror movie monster that the heroes can do little more than run away from.
That he was just a monster in 2003 is wrong though. He was also presented as a general and someone with a warrior's code.
The deleted scene from episode 3 where he executes Shak-Ti would have added to the horror aesthetic.
Agreed to humanize a monster doesn't diminish how horrifying the are infact it gives them more depth in my book and in a way more scary
Excellent points, all. Grievous in 2003 is perfect. He’s not just a one-dimensional monster, but a brilliant tactician and strategist.
@@alpha77productions22 He has a sort of fucked up "warriors code" in the Labyrinth of Evil novel as well. You can see it a couple of times against Jedi. He lets one hit him a few times, before killing her. He also displayed this sort of twisted "honor" in the General Grievous miniseries published by Dark Horse. When a padawan girl is brave enough to challenge him and ask him a fighting chance against him, he actually offers her one of his lightsabers. She gets clobbered immediately, of course, but not killed, to which he says he'll have his lightsaber back. Those stories both maintain his ruthlessness and the horror element too. In the comic, he wants to make padawan into cyborgs like him, an idea alone that is pretty horrifying. He also orders the death of a city full of Ugnaughts in the comic, when the same padawan girl shows an act of defiance against him. He'd do similar things in Labyrinth of Evil, during the Battle of Coruscant, where he straight up orders civilian targets be attacked, to disorient Jedi and clones. I'd imagine he used similar tactics when he was organic against the Huk during their war, especially when he got more brutal and put them on the defense. Basically, Grievous seems to have a tiny bit of respect for power and the willingness to challenge him on some level. But he registers everyone else in war as, largely, collateral damage.
It made more sense with Grievous being grievously, no pun intended, injured by Windu and why he had to run.
He almost went down to a Force Crush on his chest and didn't want to push his luck further.
He already had very limited lung capacity before Mace crushed his chest and that certainly did him no favors
Well that only works as reason why he outright fled from Obi-Wan and Anakin on his ship, because he pretty much just came back from the surface where he endured that injury and why Obi-Wan could (barely) beat him on his own later on. Though there is a lot more situations where Grievous seemed weaker in The Clone Wars
He also crushed parts of his brain making him laugh uncontrollably at times ✒📖
As much as I love Grievous in all of his portrayals, I wish we could have seen him victorious more often, like in Lair of Grievous. Granted he'd only beaten a Padawan, but that still takes more skill then most organic beings have.
It was a newly christened knight he killed I think. But I guess that's too far from a padawan.
I'm still made that Crystal Crisis on Utapau never got finished. Same for most of the other arcs, too.
After Vader and Maul, Grievous really needs his hallway scene in "live action".
He sort of got a “hallway” scene but instead of a hall way it was inside a hangar annihilating clones that was in a gunship.
Agreed
One day people will realize when it comes to villains, being good at fighting or strong in the force doesn’t mean unbeatable or unkillable.
Hell my favorite example of your point is Achilles. Dude was invincible yet still died from an arrow to the heel. In a good story no one is truly immortal
This might sound harsh, but I think it also shows how superficial some people are in the fandom, the lack of critical thinking skills and is a testament as to why Star Wars is devolving
Grievous is one if my favorite Star Wars characters in the entire franchise and it’s a shame he’s just boiled down to superficial powerscaling and ‘GriEvOuS gOt NeRfEd’ like it’s some kind of League if Legends patch
Especially when your insides were crushed by Samuel L Jackson
@@blackblack1167also people calling him a coward bothers me, he’s not a coward, he’s intelligent and understands when he’s beaten. He strategically retreats and regroups when he needs to, and most importantly lives through his battles
That's why anytime people are arguing about who would win in a fight with Palpatine and someone is arguing that Sidious is always going to win I just ask "Damn that's crazy so he won't lose if a barely alive, one armed cyborg did one (1) thing he didn't expect? Like he can't be easily surprised and thrown down a vent shaft before he can stop his assailant with his god-like force powers or anything?"
I think a lot of people forget that it wasn't just grievous that was overpowered in the 2003 series, it was everyone. The scale was ramped up to an almost ridiculous degree with characters like Mace Windu fighting against 1000's of droids at once single handed.
Also they have to remember the microseries was made by Tartakovsky, someone who likes exaggerating things to make the events sell hard. Not saying it as a bad thing, but still something to keep in mind when it comes to portrayals as writers and directors all have their preferred way to tell stories
Even accounting for the move in to 3D grievous was nerfed more then other characters.
To be fair, Tartakovsky picked the strongest Jedi according to George to do the over-the-top feats, particularly with Windu.
"We may have been exhausted but when was the last time that someone stood up to five jedi and held his own?"
Grievous was definetly overpowered in Clone Wars compared to those around him. Ki Adi Mundi, Shaak Ti and Aayla Secura are all high ranking Jedi Masters. He was nerfed either way but something that should have been considered is that he was nerfed in the story too. Clone Wars Grievous didn't have asthma before Windu crushed his torso at the end of the series. This doesn't explain everything but it does tie in nicely with the movie where his first screen appearance is an asthma attack. (" UH! I just swallowed my gum!")
The creators said that Grievous was supposed to be a manifastation of fear when they made the show. This seems accurate to Lucas' early plans when you watch the making off from Episode III. They changed his character and his skill. He is just beaten too easily even when you remove the anime power levels from 2003. And there is a difference between a calculated retreat and running away laughing at every chance. 2003 Grievous was a tactician but also presented himself as an honorable fighter.
The virgin "Hehehehe... Time to abandon ship."
vs
The Chad "You have only prolonged the inevitable!"
This is exactly what I tell people about Starkiller
I always interpreted his debut appearance with two factors:
One: we are seeing this play out from the POV of the tired, ragged and very rattled Jedi, which makes this droid seem like he’s this unstoppable force of nature, which is offset by the reinforcement POV that shows Ki Adi STILL able to hold his own AND that the cyber general retreats like any soldier outgunned AND that there WERE survivors in that fight in the end.
Two: Grevious probably DID do all this crazy stuff but as a result his joints and components have been overtaxed, a point no doubt made by his own personal doctor droid who would berate him for overtaxing his cyber components and thus Grevious would just have to rely on MORE intimidation factors and ride off the reputation he garnered. A reputation that is SLOWLY waning away EVERYTIME Kenobi gets involved.
Also let’s be realistic, Lucas and co gave Genndy VERY little to work with when they gave him sketches of Grevious in the middle of working on Revenge. And since this was a concept made by Lucas and how Grevious is portrayed in most portrayals was HIS call, this was just a one off.
There are a couple of flaws there.
1. Grievous' cybernetics shouldn't be/aren't that delicate that they need to be replaced after a single fight, but even if they were, they could still be replaced.
2. Grievous isn't supposed to meet either Anakin or Obi-wan until Revenge of the Sith. Which is why it took Obi-wan so long to put Grievous down.
@@bluehero-96 Did it take him long tho? From the first clash to Grievous losing his first hand it's 11 seconds.
@@bluehero-96where does it say Obi-Wan and Grievous aren’t supposed to meet until Revenge of the Sith
@JR-ol9pc
When they meet on the bridge of the Invisible Hand, Grievous addresses them both for the first time, even referring to Obi-wan by his title "the Negotiator" in mock formality. The pretense of formality being dropped halfway through addressing Anakin. Furthermore, in the novelization, Mace and Yoda surmise that Obi-wan was the ONLY jedi in the entire order who could defeat Grievous, to Obi-wan's disbelief. Given the context of TCW, where they fight once a week for cheap nostalgic fanservice, this canonical conversion would be impossible.
@@bluehero-96 how would it be impossible? They said he can beat him, not kill him. And using Obi-WAN’s title is a form of mockery regardless.
I still would want a Grievous that at least meet somewhere down the middle where he can still be imposing and intimidating like the micro and legends version and still have characteristics and flaws like him getting into situations in over his head and underestimate his opponent from time to time like EP 3 and TCW version
One thing they unequivocally nerfed from Tartakovsky's depiction was his speed and momentum.
Kicking off an Acclamator's interior so hard that his landing generated a shockwave that blew away Jedi Masters at Hypori.
Running straight down a sheer face of the Chancellor's apartment quickly enough to outpace a super-fast evacuation elevator.
Filoni's Grievous had power, but in terms of pure swiftness, he was an elementary schooler in comparison to Tartakovsky's Usain Bolt.
Let's be honest how wired it would look in 3d for him to be running down a wall
2d was absolute cinema
3d is absolute trash and destroys every fear of character
While you are right that ROTS doesn't contradict CW 2003, TCW definitely does. Not only is Grievous cowardly in that show, but he is also incredibly hot headed and sometimes outright stupid. Also GL never intended for him to be weak, just not for him to be Vader level, and the Nightsisters arc was an example of where TCW made him weak by losing to Ventress. You are right that he did mentally wear down his opponents in Legends, but he did this ROTS as well, not in TCW. In TCW, all he did was cheat, which isn't the same thing. The fact is that TCW portrayed Grievous a lot worse than any other form of media. Even when making the show they said he should be able to handle clones easily, and yet he struggles to fight them in the Lair of Grievous arc and in S3 against the 212th. It is only in S5 that he is at all decent. As for the idea that he wasn't a proper character, that is also incorrect. The other EU writing coming out around the time of Episode 3 made him a pretty clear story. What actually happened was that George thought his backstory was too similar to Vader's.
Did George forget he approved and commissioned Grievous' Legends backstory? 😂 He seems to not able to handle his own employees sometimes and then acts with surprised Pikachu face. Warren Fu, the guy who designed Grievous and worked on Episode 3, made his backstory! George can't blame EU writers for this one, it was one of his team.
The guy is now a filmmaker, and would be perfect guy to direct and write a Grievous series.
@@АлексейМомот-щ7о idk how its similar to vader at all
@@АлексейМомот-щ7о You do know it's kind of bad form to post the exact same thing on another comment in the same comment section, right?
@@tayyc It's similar to Vader in the sense Vader is supposed to be an unstoppable human cyborg. George Lucas later had a problem with that fact
@@Mega-P71 I never got the issue. Greivous is insanely powerful, a showcase of what cybernetics at the top of the line could do. Vader is that -with- the incredible force powers of the Chosen One. Greivous should be a showcase of the crazy stuff Vader could do with more budget, or that he does in other media
Don't forget that in the Microsereis he ALSO got injured by a Jedi at the battle of Coruscant, which was also why he was originally wheezing in the Revenge of the Sith. Ahsoka probably wasn't terrified because she was overconfident, making her not really fear Greivous. Plus he decided to Brag and not just kill her, thinking Ahsoka wasn't a threat, as a result she escaped.
Ahsoka probably beat him the 2nd time because she knew that after her, were those younglings that while talented, were no match for Grievous, so she had a mission to do: protect the younglings at all costs; There, in her mind, was no time to be afraid. Also that fact that she knew he was coming before hand so she had time to prepare for him mentally, so she was not phased if Grievous tried to scare her, she did in fact use his weakness against him: the force.
That was Mace Windu who injured Greivous just before Episode 3 kicked off time-line wise. Ahsoka's battle with him as you said was a mixture of both of them being too confident. As a result, Ahsoka wasn't intimidated by him and Grievous didn't take her seriously. Under normal circumstances the outcome would have been very different.
@@kylepessell1350 Don't forget in his next appearance he promptly shot a Freshly minted Jedi Knight using one of his extra arms. Seemingly learning his lesson to not toy around with an opponent.
Ahsoka survived Grievous because of bad writing, plain and simple. Mentally prepared or not, Grievous would have just killed her and been done with it.
@@bluehero-96 That 2nd fight was in season 5, and you say that was bad writing. Her mental preparedness was what Grievous was not wanting her to be, he wanted her off balanced like the Jedi at Hypori were.
My biggest issue with his portrayal in TCW isn't that he's willing to make a sensible retreat, so much as the writing for him as the mustache twirling villain in the majority of cases. As well as Anakin, Obiwan and especially Ahsoka in particular not having the fear factor within them even early on. TCW picks up relatively early in the Clone Wars before Grievous was supposed to have been actually well known. Taking into account that the battle of Hypori was actually the first real encounter with him that ended with survivors and he wasn't known as the grand leader of CIS forces due to the likes of Sevrance Tann being the leader at the time. Before her intentional assassination due to mistrust by Palpatine.
Point being ultimately. He wasn't shown to his true potential in many situations due to being able to be distracted and temporarily stalled by Ahsoka rather than just carving her up, bashing droids like it was comic relief, and not even Anakin or Obiwan being intimidated at any point just made him feel like a caricature more often than not. When dealing with Jedi we only get a small number of encounters where there's fear involved. Plus when adding Episode 3 into the context, suddenly Obiwan and Anakin being familiar to Grievous by reputation only makes zero sense suddenly. In the MOVIE of all things. Could easily have kept him separate from the pair in face to face combat without sacrificing or limiting his use.
It was only truly established that he’d never met Anakin before
Sure certain lines do make it obvious that it was intended that he’d never met obiwan before but said dialogue still works even if they have met
You gotta stretch your logic a bit for one line in particular but it can still kinda work
Yeah I love the 2008 series but I’ll concede that this one complaint is valid. But it’s the only one that’s valid. The only one.
Well pre 2008 Grievous was almost invincible in combat. Kenobi and perhaps Anakin are said to be the only Jedi who stand a chance against him. Even Windu admitted inferiority.
Then came 08 and suddenly gungans are beating his arse
@@tayyc
I mean to be fair that’s only cause he was fucking around. I mean look at that scene he doesn’t even try to kill any of them, he’s just flexing. And when he does kill one fuckers still holding his weapon as he picks him up
Short answer the gun guns got lucky
I remember always being scared shitless by Grievous when I watched TCW as a kid, especially in the Grievous' lair episode. Him being so "cowardly" makes you hate him even more, and even if you had already watched ROTS his fights with Obi-Wan and the other Jedi always had you on the edge of your seat. He's the best cartoonish childrens' TV villain TCW could have asked for with him being menacing, hateable but also funny at times.
Also what I like about his appearance in ROTS is that even tho he isn't any fleshed out antagonist character he still kinda has a purpose in the movie. Imo his appearances on the Invisible Hand and on Utapau are such cool and badass fights that they actually make you miss the Clone Wars era even though you should actually be happy for the characters that the war is over. He always brought that light hearted "Tom and Jerry feeling" to the show, but what follows after his death is arguably even worse than the Clone Wars.
Think about it like this:
As a Jedi, you would be keenly aware of, not only your surroundings but, the emotions of others. You can walk into a room and sense the moods of others in it like an average joe could walk into the room and sense someone cooking bacon.
Now imagine what sensing Grievous would be like, before seeing him: Untold anger and pain, as well as a devestation that would leave you wondering how he was alive at all, let alone moving with such speed.
Hilariously, I compare it to a waste water treatment plant. Walking in for the first time is like *_"OH GOD,"_* where the people who work there (your Anakin's and Obi-Wan's) are like, "You get used to it, _even though you _*_NEVER_*_ get used to it!"_
Baring in mind that Anakin and Grievous have been close, but never met face to face until the winding down of the Clone Wars
The un-nerfed version was so powerful mace windo was affraid to fight him because he would learn vapad and use it against the jedi. Imagine if thay plotline was in the clone wars.
Grievous has always been one of my favorite characters but also the most frustrating because of how much potential he had. The thing that always gets me the most is that in 90% of the fights where he’s wielding 4 lightsabers, he either doesn’t use them all or moves them in the EXACT SAME POSITION. Like at least once I’d like to see him fight someone, hit them with two of his sabers and make them block it, only to hit them with a third one from a direction they can’t dodge in time. They made a villain who looks absolutely menacing and gave him this incredible advantage but knew they couldn’t let him use it or else the story wouldn’t unfold the way it’s supposed to. Like I said he’s still one of my favorite characters in Star Wars but it’s large cause of that pity I have for him with how much of his potential was tossed aside
seeing Grievous clean out the Jedi in Star Wars: Clone Wars will always be one of my favorite scenes from Star Wars.
that was a gourmet scene, indeed.
I think even the legends Grievous would know when his odds aren't in his favor, so the canon Grievous would make some sense. And a plus, he has more character which is what it is needed. Sure he can have good moments of being capable of curbstomping anything in his way when it is in his favor.
THANK YOU!
And one of the downsides of Grievous's tactics (besides if you weren't intimidated by them) was, as Dooku regularly points out to Grievous, that his tactics were sloppy and imprecise. He preferred using an overwhelming barrage of baffling bullshit over a precise, well-coordinated plan or attack pattern. He did precision very well on Hypori, where he had a massive element of surprise, but once the Jedi started to get a feel for his style, they learned that a bit of precision was all they needed to best Grievous, which is I think why Obi-Wan was so well-matched against Grievous, because he was that careful, precise Jedi.
I think he was capable of much at least a bit more nuance in his style before TCW. Back when he'd open battles with two arms and keep the extras in reserve rather than open with his gambit. It makes sense for Obiwan of all folks to find the precision needed, most Jedi wouldn't have had the chance to learn in time before dying or getting critically injured though, the General always seemed to have another surprise in his best confrontations.
Canon Grievous: This town isn't big enough for two super villains!
Legends Grievous: Oh, you're a villain, alright. Just not a super one.
Canon Grievous: Yeah? What's the difference?
Legends Grievous: Presentation!
2003 Grievous could have probably killed Metroman
I think this video underplays Grievous's strength ,speed and durability. Fear, suprise and antimadation were definitely not the only things he had going for him.
Still a great video though.
I loved Grievous ever since the micro series and am still hoping and waiting for your Grievous character breakdown video hopefully in the future!!!
Yeah me too!
Grievous also seemed to be nerfed in RoTS and CW, because earlier Windu crushed his ribcage, a near-fatal blow that he never recovered from, that left him a bit weaker, gave him the iconic cough and presented a problem for him - if someone were to know that his lungs were organic (because it was not a well known fact) and that they were also his weak point (apart from, well, head) and utilized that knowledge, he'd be at a massive disadvantage. Having harder time fighting and still being a formittable foe that can easily make a salad out of you actually show that he was still quite the danger.
Windu crushed his ribcage AFTER the entirety of his TCW appearance. Windu crushing his ribcage at the battle of coruscant (that same one from Revenge of the Sith) does not excuse him being an entirely different character in the entirety of TCW.
I have never understood why people critisize Grievous for retreating. Dooku retreats too, but no one seems to care and the Jedi still respect him as a swordsman and take him seriously as a threat, but when Grievous retreats, he's a coward? I don't get it. Kit Fisto even retreated from a duel with Grievous, but people give stuff like that a pass and wouldn't dare call Jedi cowards for retreating.
I would have to respectfully disagree. While I agree for some of your points regarding the 2003 CW, looking into the lore such as labyrinth of evil, general grievous comics or the republic comic series, grievous easily despatched jedi even in situations where they were not intimidated or surprised, see the battle of salucami where it was the CIS who were surprised. His tactical inability in TCW is also a predominant issue, throughout all the prior lore he was a genius, tearing his way through the republic with his mind as the leader of the droid armies, TCW afforded only trench as a competent strategist and even had comments mocking the generals ability such as obi wan saying “not even grievous would attack this recklessly.” The final point is that TCW also did nothing to add to the personality of grievous, he became 2D; his only personality traits being laughing, coughing and scowling. To compound this error, TCW even changed his backstory, turning him from a compelling tragic character who’s fall to cybernetics mirrored anakins, to a whiny warrior who hates the jedi for no other reason than they wouldn’t allow him to join the order.
YES! i am so glad i wasn't the only thinking this when watching this video!
Exactly. Also He Had Honor. Granting Warriors death.
"Unfortunatly they took from his 2D precursor nothing that made him special, then his precursor outshined him in his sleep.
Ironic.
They could make his apperance 3D but not himself."
"who hates the jedi for no other reason than they wouldn’t allow him to join the order" What is that about though?
@@alpha77productions22 TCW retconned his Cybernetics to being Made cause He wanted to be a Jedi
I see your points, but I don't agree with them.
Animation style is only the looks and flare of the motion. The same scene can have different animation styles, but the events that transpire should still be the same.
How can we not say that Grievous didn't get nerfed if he went from an unrelenting fighter that killed more jedi in two battles than in the rest of the war? That stopped being fast, unpredictable and a master of his machine body to be slow, one-trick-ponny that only managed to win fights against padawans and barely used his own body as an advantage?
You don't have to make a character less relentless or less unstoppable to make it deeper and more complex. Wasn't Vader like that? Strong fighters can also be cowards, make him truly competent and aggressive when he is winning, and then make him turn tail as soon as he feels he is beginning to lose; give him some real victories against jedi and in big battles instead of constantly frustrate his shenanigans as if he were the Team Rocket.
And don't even make me even argue the forgotten depth the Grievous had before, the specific hatred he had towards the jedi and his origin. Exploring that would've give him true depth as a character, real reason to be an antagonist instead of the evil-just-because character we ended up having.
It's kind of sad how far Grevious has fallen, after all, like Kit Fisto said, "You were a proud warrior once! But now you're nothing more than a pawn in Dooku's game!"
That proud Kaleesh Warrior he once was died a long time ago, now he's just a machine that thinks proud warriors are fools. In a way, despite not being Force-sensitive, he is very reflective of what happens to those that fall to the Dark Side, he's given up everything he use to care about his honor, pride, his people, all that stuff that actually makes life worth living, and now all he cares about is victory and power, but without any of that other stuff it's all meaningless at the end of the day because it proves nothing without the other elements. It's like what Obi-Wan told him, "What does all the talking get you. A futile quest for power? A mutilated body? You're place as Dooku's errand boy?" Because at the end of the day, despite all the power and victory he wields, he is just a second bannan in all this, despite his boasts of how he is the greatest, since he has to cheat to win fights, so he's not the best he's second or even lower on the totem poll. Which is all sad given how much I do like Grevious, his introduction at the Battle of Hypori, his battles with Obi-Wan, the Battle of Dathomir, and him chasing Shaak Ti and the others all great stuff.
The three moments in Clone Wars where Grevious felt a bit like his old self, is first in the opening of Grievous Intrigue when he's boarding Koth's ship, when he cuts through the door, kicks it down, and it's launched across the holotable and kills a clone. Bro killed someone just by entering the room. I could also say that whole episode felt more like old Grievous than usual just because of how desperate everyone is to capture him and especially to keep him on Obi-Wan's ship when he tries to escape. It makes him feel like much more of a big deal than he's usually portrayed. Second is the second to last episode in the youngling arc from season 5 in the brief sequence where he's seen on board Obi-Wan's ship and he plows through a group of clones pretty quickly and in a pretty stylish way that brings back some memories of when he killed all the clones in Palpatine's office in the miniseries. And then of course the scene from the Crystal Crisis arc where he effortlessly beats Obi-Wan. That or the moment where he just straight up beheads the arms dealer. That was one of a very few moments where he was actually intimidating.
I think that your take is a little off. He is a horror villain, but you can make that into a character. When he speaks make it profound. Sometimes choosing when to speak and when not to speak is far more profound. Being focused and is terrifying. Retreating is a tactical choice and it doesn't have to look cowardly. The way the clone wars does it well.... he looks pathetic. Also putting him up again Ashoka makes him look even worse.
When people say he was needed they mean, or at least what I mean, is his representation. I’m canon he is still regarded as a deadly opponent and Jedi hunter, we just never really see it. When he fights Obi wan we never actually see him do anything or build up how much of a threat he is. He is just kind of thrown in like “check out this cool character design”. I’m ok if they wanted to make him of if a classic cartoon villain, but they should at least give him enough to where he remains a threat.
I do disagree that depth was added in the 2008 and RotS. Lucas stripped most of the compelling and complex backstory of the Jedi wronging his people by favoring the corrupt Republic bureaucrats that were allowing the Huk to exploit the Kaleesh homeworld simply because they weren't members of the Republic. It removed his nuanced reluctance to adopt the cybernetics save through manipulation and last resort, the modification of his own brain without his knowledge and the reasons for his sheer brutality. How thanks to his unique background and Dooku's inside knowledge of the Jedi, Grievous was tailor made to kill Jedi, racking up 147 Jedi kills during the Clone Wars directly and indirectly.
In the 2008 series he just 'wanted to improve himself' and was jealous of the Jedi since they didn't let him be one. That's a pitifully pale shadow of what his lore was previously.
Okay so I just read the canon backstory and the legends backstory back to back and they’re really not that different
In both cases greivious was horrifically injured then submitted to the changes as basically his only option and never learned that the attack was planned by his supposed allies
The only noteworthy difference is that legends goes more in depth with what happened before that by talking about the Yamari AKA the Huk
The Clone Wars microseries OPed everyone. Consider how bareknuckle Mace Windu was totally absent on Geonosis.
Grevious is arguably the most tragic story right behind Vader.
All three main antagonists (Maul, Dooku, and Grevious) of the prequels are tragic in their own regards.
I would argue that Grievous is even more tragic than Vader. While Vader was able to redeem himself, Grievous was killed before he could even learn the truth about what happen to him!
@macwade2755 I 100% agree. Just didn't know if saying Grevious was more tragic was a hot take. Grevious was told it was the jedi who did that to him when in reality it was his master who ironically was a former jedi. Crazy manipulation.
@@Starwarsfan066 Weird that he said that Labyrinth of Evil shows him as a droid when this is one of the stories it goes into.
One could argue that he is even more so than Anakin.
It's the same age old question:
What's more tragic?
The fact that your downfall is due to your own actions?
Or the realization that whatever the action, your demise was inevitable?
Huh, this is true--General Grievous always did what he was meant to do; Fight and win through any means necessary.
I do love him for all that he's been due to the fact that he is the EXACT polar opposite of the Jedi; He's cruel, calculating, and dishonorable--he was always the perfect opponent for any Jedi in the Clone Wars.
You absolutely can take a horror monster aspect of it and you can still characterize that. Quiet is a defining character trait, as is brooding, menacing, or mechanical. As is patient, which 2003 Grievous undoubtedly was. I'd argue it would work better in portraying him that way throughout Revenge of the Sith as an aspect of Vader, the almost soulless, droid-like monster with a cold, emotionless voice which assaults Anakin and Kenobi from the shadows before being beaten off and deciding to crash the ship in a silent vengeance. Something of that effect would work more to build him up as a threat for those who haven't seen him in the 2003 cartoon and symbolize that edge of Vader. Implement some variant of cough, which almost certainly was made as a way to call back to Vader's breathing, in a more menacing way. Only show him as a character in his dying moments. I think that would be more effective. Revenge of the Sith is brilliant, one of the best of the Star Wars films and has some of the best moments in film history, but it is not unblemished.
A way you could really do this is by showing Kenobi have a little growth between the first encounter and the second, where the first Kenobi is taken by surprise against Grievous and shows a slight anxiety about it alongside Anakin showing some himself after the surprise, forced to defend Palpatine, the heart of the Republic, and off-balanced could justify such a reaction from the two. Then Kenobi approaches Grievous entirely calm in the second conflict as he takes him alone, this could be reflected with Anakin stewing in his fear of losing Padme.
Clone Wars 2008 absolutely does nerf him. I don't think that's arguable, he get beaten by younglings. You can't dismiss this as just a result of mediocre writing. Clone Wars 2008 was largely poorly written when it comes to villains (beside Palpatine himself), lore, continuity, and many other issues. Good stories generally but some of the weakest world building in the franchise, at times worse for the health of the story than Hand of Vader. His strategies are usually poor and he doesn't really do his terms.
The 2008 cartoon had him outsmarted at almost every turn, and you also similarly can't use a completely cancelled episode in as a point.
The difference between a villain and a super villain: Presentation!
There wasn't much depth given to his character in Filoni's Clone Wars, he only got nerfed & became a pathetic coward.
I think I disagree. They gave Grievous defining traits in the first animated series. Then instead of writing around those traits to fit the themes of the film, they overwrote them. You can characterize quiet, intimidating characters. You can overcome overwhelmingly strong antagonists. Horror movies do both often. Hell, fantasy fiction does both often as well. The antagonists there don't start losing to everyone and their mom when the heroes find a way to fight back
I don't think Clone Wars really did characterise Grievous as not talking much, because in that series there is not that much talking in general.
YES! they gave defining Traits. there was a character there! legends grievous was not shallow just because he was portrayed as an overwhelming opponent! heck, the legends comics gave him a wonderful backstory that Lucas tossed out the window for being a Saturday cartoon villain cause "too similar to vader."
@@ikrIkarus You're absolutely right! And if you watch Tartakovsky's other works, you'll notice he doesn't employ a lot of dialogue in general. He much prefers to have his animation do the storytelling for him!
@@billyholland5156 I liked the old backstory way more. It shown that he originally fought with honor and never really planned to by augmented with cyborg parts.
Reminds me a lot of Adam Jensen from the later dues ex games. He only became a cyborg thanks to an attack on the company he was working on.
And frankly I think Grivious becomes a much more interesting character if he had honor to begin with, and looses it thanks to the chips they put in his brain and the endless battles of the clone wars, that warp his perspective on everything.
His original backstory also gave him a reason to hate the Jedi before he ever became a cyborg. They helped this bug race enslave his people.
With his new backstory Dooku basically went "You want more power?" And Grivious was like "K. Sounds cool." and joined the separatists.
The 03 Clone Wars (aka, the good one) fits Legends Grievous into the Movies just fine. With his health and faction failing during the Battle of Coruscant, and fighting Obi-wan for the FIRST time on Utapau, it's easy to see the once great Jedi hunter quickly decline.
I think the issue with his TCW appearances is that he was very overused. They should've used Ventress and Durge then had Grievous be introduced later.
I respect the opinion of this video... With that being said it's WRONG. Greivous was nerfed. You said yourself in the way he was written he was nerfed. Also alot of citations about him in this video are false. I won't rebuttal all of them just the one that irritates me the most: Dooku stated Grevious needs those three tactics to succeed against the BEST of the Jedi, NOT ALL OF THEM. I'm sick & tired of ppl misinterpreting that scene. Greivous is not limited to those means. These are simply psychological weapons that Greivous was taught to use by the person who literally used to be a Jedi. Mace Windu in the microseries had an absurd amount of physical space to accomplish his Force Crush move on Greivous, not 2 lightsabers spinning at 360 RPM in his face! In the Labrynth Of Evil novel he fought Windu one on one no Magnagaurds, & even Windu thought to himself that it might not be the smartest decision to continue fighting this guy longer than necessary. Trust & believe Windu had no time to crush his chestplate in that brief encounter. Characters were not OP in the microseries they were Lore accurate
If ever there were a character in Star Wars that deserves a chance of getting his own R-rated movie
With the notable exception of Vader of course
Hm, fair and valid points and opinions, Grievous has always been one of my favorites, so i really appreciate this Video.
I really do wish we could’ve gotten more from him though.
Same. I would love to see a better middle ground for him. Keep George's vision of him being a moustache twirling villain, but at least give him moments to sell he's quite a terrifying menace against his opponents while showing emphasis of the 3 conditions he must have to beat them
I would love an open world clone wars game where you can side with the republic or seperatists. Maybe have a part where you can be helped, or attacked by magna guards and clone commandos. Could also make a horror game where youre a padawan or apprentice trapped in greivous' compund having to constantly outrun him
Legends vs canon legends definitely wins for Grevious
I disagree that Grievous could not be written as a horror movie villain. He does not have to be a force of nature all the time, though. Grievous is a brilliant strategist and tactician, and he would know when being relentless and pushing his strength to the max while toying with the Jedi is his best move. He could have been written largely the same in TCW (his dialogue is largely fine) but with more battle scenes showing his performance in a vein similar to Admiral Trench. His competence is shown plenty, but the Jedi almost always are shown as being one step ahead. Of course, they want to show the protagonists winning on screen, but with an entire series to focus on a 3 year war, why couldn’t Grievous and the droid army have had several episodes where they dominated? I think that detracts from the depth of the show, whereas taking advantage of Grievous’ potential as a horror monster could have been immensely entertaining if executed like the 2003 series, just with the appropriate tempo.
Final note: Grievous is a fascinating character because he combines the warrior code of the Jedi, the passion and hatred of the Sith, and a battle IQ not too far distant from Thrawn*. He is not the peak of any one of these things, but being all of them makes them unique. Showcasing them makes his character what we love, and TCW simply puts more emphasis on fleshing out the protagonists and certain other protagonists. That’s not all bad, but it was a disservice to our general.
*”Never have we been outmaneuvered by droids. His strategy is without flaw.” Shaak Ti, on General Grievous
6:38 I managed to turn on its head by making Chort Dalmatian related to Chernabog himself Chort is a different type of monster one horror villain that does exist in the real world, except for the part where she is a Dalmatian the only medical work that real dogs really do is be an assistant.
If one has to choose between the Clones Wars series being the "kids' show" that we know or the borderline horror series similar to Attack on Titan, which one should be chosen? If the latter is chosen, the people will get the Grievous they desired but it won't be the same Clones Wars we all know and love.
6:03 even so he's clearly powerful enough to fight to a draw with Windu in Labyrinth of Evil ( yeah ik Windu crushed his chest in the 2003 series but even so ), and Dooku doesn't teach him everything to keep an edge over him, he bodies Ventress and Durge something he can't replicate in the 2008 series to say the least...
I love how no in no matter what medium Grievous' whole body can be a weapon, his arms of course can make for a rapid assault using four blades to overwhelm lesser Jedi especially after a drawn-out engagement, but he also uses his legs and feet on occasion using them to kick, and grab opponents especially when said opponents have managed to get behind him, we even see him crush the chest of a clone in an episode of not only as a show of strength but also as an intimidation tactic.
This is Canon for me! General Grievous is my favorite character! Please do more videos on him! I do hope that one day we get some more portrayals of Grievous in the horror villain style!
I don’t find Grievous running away as evidence that he was nerfed. In the micro-series, Dooku actually told Grievous, “If you are to succeed in combat against the best of the Jedi, you must have fear, surprise, and intimidation on your side. But if any one element is lacking, it would be best for you to retreat.”
The bigger issue is that if you’re going to have the big bad on screen with the protagonists, you’re gonna need a way for those protagonists to make it out alive to fight again. This could’ve been addressed with more solo Grievous episodes, but I imagine a little kid might not be too excited to watch a monster slaughter anybody, let alone Jedi, the icons of heroism in Star Wars.
I most certainly agree with your argument and to the fact that Gen. Grievous is well aware of his strengths and weaknesses and plays them to his advantage is one of the main reasons why I like him as a character. What I don't like is what they made his character out to be.
In the mini series, you did get that sense that he was more machine than man with how little he talked and how driven he is toward a single objective. If they had kept that aspect of him and incorporated some of his background. Like how before he became a cyborg, he was an honorable warlord on his homeworld of Kaleesh. But from years of his people's suffering and the fact that the Republic, and in turn the Jedi, were responsible for most of it. I think everyone would have a far better take on the character than they do today.
Plus, it would have given Grievous a much stronger tie to Darth Vader than them being cyborgs.
There was a pilot in WW2 that had more confirmed kills than the American sniper Chris Kyle. The reason this pilot was so good was "if the enemy seen him first he would use his plane's superior speed to retreat, he was like a hunter stalking his pray before he attacked from their blind spot"
Honorable duels are great to watch but that will NEVER happen in war. My uncle use to say "if you're in a fair fight you screwed up"
6:08 he never stops WHATING?
finally! someone who dosen't just say that 2003 grievous is the best and 2008 grievous sucks. but actually understand him as a character, how he is a smart fighter with some weaknesses. people often forget that the 2003 series exaggerates the characters power level because that's the direction the show wanted to go with.
and am definitely a grievous enjoyer
also TCW started out with the intention of being a super kid friendly show, so for the first and maybe second season things played out safe and light hearted, as expected for shows aimed toward kids. It's only in later seasons that the show was allowed to show more mature and darker things to make the stories much more nuanced and exciting
He was definitely nerfed a bit. Windu crushing his chest and giving him his iconic cough made him weaker and he had to flee more rather than fight. He couldnt intimidate as easily as he did before because not many Jedi were intimidated by a wheezing cyborg.
Something that should not be forgotten, like force unleashed, everything in the 2003 clone wars serie was over the top, remember windu fighting an entire army of droid with his bare hands ? Or Anakin going solo against thousand and thousands of ships, everything in that show was crazy insane
Regardless of the scenario, Grievous will always be one of my favorite Star Wars villains. 2003 blew me away and it was great to see him on the silver screen a couple years later.
And he lost his chest to Windu cause it takes more than 4 arms to scare the Bad Motherfucker
"Why is Grievous so weak and always coughing like he's got TB in the movie? He wasn't like that in the cartoon!"
I always hated this comment. He literally got Force crushed by Mace Windu in the cartoon as he escaped with Palpatine. Maybe if more people actually watched the cartoon, and not just his first appearance, they'd know that.
“He just never stops coming”
Dang, ok. I didn’t know he was like that ❤
Let's be honest for a moment, some of Grievous defeats in TCW are understandable; for example the gungans defeated him after he defeated one of his generals, in a battle, and that general took the chance to stab Grievous and heavily damage him and then it occurred the Episode I strategy with the droids... but if Grievous hadn't under estimated the gungans he could have easily won that battle, or most of his encounters with Ahsoka sums up in her trying to escape from the general in some way, it may look goofy in TCW but I see it the same way as I would see the ewoks in Episode VI. Anyway, when I think of Grievous is like someone that would take any chance to survive so his portrayal/power has not really changed from the 2003 series due to the fact that Dooku trained Grievous with those tactics in mind; Grievous is first an opportunistic and then a power house.
Great video! Though I have to say, he technically did lose some powers. In the micro series he was able to spin his body in ways he could not in later appearances, and used his fight to duel as well, though you could argue that was just more of the show's artistic style and taking liberties.
This still doesn't justify them changing his personality
I like when Grievous showed up TCW because a lot of the time when he escaped it was on 6 limbs and moved like he was some kind of spider, made him kind of freaky. The only way he could have been made scarier would be if he had lightsabers with Ghostfire and Lorridian Crystals. (Edit, additional info to give nightmares)
General Grievous if done right wouldve been the perfect mix of psychological warfare personified. I feel that one episode in TCW did a decent job of this and outlined his potential it was the one where Kit fisto and the other jedi (I can’t remember the name of) were responding to a distress signal on a foggy planet and once they got there it was desolate no resistance at first and it built from there
I think its also important to point out, by the time of revenge of the Sith, the republic is already well aware of who GG is and operates, just like any new villain their introduction is usaly one of there most impressive display, before the "heroes" learn how to fight them
2D Grievous: You are a villain alright, you are just not a super one.
3D Grievous: whats the difference?
2D Grievous: PRESENTATION!
I mean when u think about it when u see a new villain in a series they are written as a terror in the story but as u keep reading the villain becomes less terrifing as u learn about them
I would love to see a revision of Grievous’ backstory where he is still a Kaleesh warlord, but in his hunt for power and victory he loses to a Jedi opponent. He is discovered by Dooku and demands to be trained in the Jedi arts but fundamentally fails due to a weak force-connection. To compensate he begins making mechanical modifications, funded by Dooku of course, and slowly becomes the malevolent machine we know him to be in the Clone Wars.
This would make more sense for his character while still retaining key elements of his legends history.
He was nerfed. You gave it a good try, but let's be honest, he was nerfed. Not as massively as he was in Filoni's Clone Wars but he was still nerfed.
When Grievous was facing his equals of course it would make sense for him to flee he’s existence was to cause as much destruction as he could which he can’t do if he was bound to thinks like honor. There are a few times in the clone wars where i’m not sure how he lost but most times anyone less than him was brutally destroyed.
I would also add that the Clone Wars puts Grievous up against too many Jedi that need to survive because they're in Revenge of the Sith, or it puts him in too many situations where if he doesn't run, he'll die, like the Malevolence about to go hyperspace into a moon, or his listening outpost crashing and burning around him. Or pitting him against Jedi like Kit Fisto and Eeth Koth.
With the fight with the Gungans, the General from “The Phantom Menace” had to sacrifice himself so that his men could take Grievous down. He actually seemed to be winning until that moment.
2003 clone wars only showed Grevious in like two encounters. One very early in the war and one near the end of the war.
TCW showed basically all his defeats throughout the war with the occasional victory. I mean the man had so many lightsabers on him and in display cases.
Explain it all you want, but 03' grievous would not have been beaten by gungans. Cope
Really pinned me in a corner with that final question... Well played.
Legends grievous : kill all jedi
Canon grievous : defeated by gungans
For Revenge of the Sith, one thing I feel needs to be remembered is that Obi-Wan was surrounded by droids, a single volley and only plot armor could save him. Despite this, Grievous chose to 1v1 and only retreated when clones arrived. I thought the fight could've been better if he just didn't lose two hands in the first minute, and instead of trying to run away form the battle completely, he maybe retreated to a secluded dark area or something, maybe have Obi-Wan lose sight of him and all he can hear is Grievous's footsteps. It would've thrown a bone to 2003 Clone Wars fans, shown his terror side without relying on him being as overpowered, and made Obi-Wan's eventual victory all the more triumphant.
As for the Gungans, I've heard some people defend it by pointing out that they had EMP weapons and Gungans are warriors and Jar-Jar is an exception not the norm. For the former, I say blasters are efficient against most things and that alone won't win you a fight, and as for the latter, that's true but so are the clones. Sure in real life no amount of skill can survive being outnumbered that badly, but for something like Star Wars, I expect any major warrior character, to not get hit, let alone defeated that easily when the enemy even takes turns for him.
Another thing to take into account is that when on screen he is pinned usually against some of the strongest jedi
He was made a joke of in the 2008 Clone Wars
I think one way that might’ve helped his portrayal in the Clone Wars would be to have limited his appearances a bit.
He can be around, giving orders and such, but every once in a while he gets a “I’ll do it myself” moment and that’s when shit hits the fan and you know things are serious, not unlike Maul’s escape in season 7, or Vader’s hallway scene in Rogue One.
The Crystal Crisis arc would’ve done wonders for him on its own.
Unfortunately in the show, Grievous only wins when the plot wants the heroes to lose.
Additionally, kind of like what you mentioned, the circumstances regarding how they could portray grievous in clone wars 2008 changed and were more limited. However I do believe the writers could have done a better job writing around grievous. In the 2003 Clone Wars Grievous was a threat taken seriously, but the response from the Jedi in CW 2008 is kind of an eye roll and “grievous again? Alright let’s go chase him.”
They wouldn’t be able to have a scene like in 2003 when Grievous abducts Palpatine. If they did the Jedi would be toasting that Grievous came to them because every time he comes up the Jedi are chomping at the bit to “catch Grievous.”
I hope we get a star was story surrounding his backstory and his first meeting with dooku
My favorite portrayal of Grevious is from the Revenge of the sith novel. He has a chapter about him, and they go into his psyche and emotional state. He is still called cowardly, which i disagree with, but they really show how droidish and unfeeling he is. I love the way the novel puts. "He doesn't breathe. He doesn't eat. He can not laugh and does not cry." While his 'Saturday morning cartoon' personality is very entertaining, i pefer a Grevious who is unfeeling almost to the point of being like the droids he despises. Despite his emotional stoicism, he is shown to be scared of Obi wan and Anakin, showing his emotions are not entirely gone. To once again quote the novel.
"He remembers anger. He remembers anger and frustration. He remembers grief and sorrow. He doesn’t actually feel them. Not anymore. He's not...designed for it."
I’m really glad that changed Grievous’ character for the movie and 2008 series.
I never liked his 03 counterpart just basically being a discount Vader. I preferred how much more personality and character they gave him later on.
Much more they gave him a bit more it’s still a cheesy Saturday morning villian personality. Now Darth maul had a big personality shift.
Also other then him being tall, intimidating, and robot voice he’s still different from darth vader. Like they don’t fight similar at all
I think some of the "Loser Grievous" aspects on Filoni's Clone Wars are for one exclusive reason: TCW are the Clone Wars as the Republic Propaganda under Palpatine depicts the war. We're seeing and hearing the Clone Wars in a cartoony way from the Republic & Jedi's perspective, heroically narrated in a way similar to Legend of Korra's 20-40s radio news style. They're depicting the Separatists and Grievous as one-dimensional saturday morning cartoon villains that have no rhyme or reason and are easily foiled without casualties (most of the time). Look at how badass and cool we are, and how pathetic these alien Seps are!
But that's only one part of Palpatine's manipulative propaganda. The other half was depicting the Separatists and Grievous for the absolute terrifying threat they were, because the whole point of the Clone Wars was scaring and radicalizing the Republic until it becomes the Empire, so that the galaxy never has to fight evil sorcerer tyrants and evil cyborg monsters like Dooku and Grievous and their faceless metal-clad armies ever again. All under the protection of Emperor Palpatine, his cyborg commander Darth Vader and their legions of Stomtroopers! :D
The middle ground truth is that Grievous IS nigh unstoppable to most Jedi, but not to the degree implied by his fight with Ki-Adi Mundi's group in Hypori. Dooku trained him to use surprise and psychological warfare to mentally disarm the Jedi, and Grievous knows that more focused Jedi like Obi-Wan and Windu will wreck his shit with the Force if given the chance (which is EXACTLY what Windu did to him pre-Revenge of the Sith, TWICE in the old EU; once in Boz Pit, then again in Coruscant). He's the General of the Droid Armies, so he NEEDS to retreat and fight another day. He's only a coward from the Jedi's perspective; also, Grievous WAS a honorable warrior before being crippled and turned into a Cyborg, and he blames the Jedi for it all. He has NO reason to be honorable towards the Jedi from where he stands. He treats them and the Republic as the loathsome pests that doomed his world and destroyed his body.
I would also argue that a lot of the "nerfs" in Star Wars have to do with the medium they're portrayed in. Games, comics and stylized cartoons are much better at depicting the full power of characters like the Jedi, the Sith and General Grievous. Movies and realistic cartoons, however, have a much harder time making those come across without looking goofy, surreal or poorly animated. Which is also why we don't see Windu crushing entire Droid Armies with his bare hands or he and Palpatine Flash-Stepping all over the room during their lightsaber duel in Revenge of the Sith.
Nahhh Clone Wars to The Clone Wars Grievous was nerfed. But Revenge of the Sith Grievous is where he should be.
hey, the theory that he was weakened in episode 3, I like that theory (the end of the clone wars cartoon, how Vindu squeezed his organs, that he was seriously injured and that's why she coughed so much) 😿
*he
I never like the idea that the force conquers all. I always wanted to believe that a smart person with the right equipment was equal to a jedi or even better than them. It frustrated me a little that they Powered down grievious . But I do understand the authors and a good portion of the fan base demanding that the force conquers all. That said I never mind a person retreating from a fight they will loose.
I agree with this notion! Although the force at highest peaks is capable of some insane things, even council level characters should be in danger of a properly skilled forced user with the right skills weapons and even exotic anatomy. So many people bring up how easy it should be to force crush grievous from the start but forget he was dodging force attacks like more than half the time Jedi tried it. Worse, they never even ask why characters Like Jango never get force crushed despite fight fighting Jedi like kenobi...despite killing *6* Jedi with his bare hands and some snow!
He’s a horror villain to his opponents when he has the advantage. His first appearance had a battle all go his way and he cleaned house, 99% casualties no clones lived.
When he was on equal footing or at a disadvantage he played smart and was willing to dip.
He played with his food but only when he felt confident he wouldn’t lose it as a result. Calculating like the droid that he is.
So he wasn't nerfed, but writers simply choose not to make him look awesome.
Grievouses role in the grand scheme I think was to basically be the fall guy for all the horrors of the war, so his tasks were to strike fear and do war crimes then flee.
I like both versions of Grievous.
Rlm made the point that Revenge of the Sith didnt give him a good outing unless you kinda watched clone wars you came into that movie not knowing who the hell he was and it would have been better if you saw him doing horrible things in the war which would make his death at the hands of Obi Wan more impactful
Everyone were busted in the 2003 cartoon
The clone wars cartoon in 03 had the habit of over exaggerating, a lot of battles and powers. The original vision of George is that grievous is a great warrior, but he’s a coward when he’s cornered.