General Grievous
Grievous is a cyborg who is also a former actor in the Star Wars franchise. Many people refer to him as General Grievous, but he has constantly told them he is not a general, that was just an acting role (but nobody listens to him). Despite many people calling him Grievous, he has revealed that Grievous is only his last name. His full name is Henry Bartholomew Grievous III, a name that has been passed down through his family for generations — at least it was until Grievous's homeplanet, Kalee, was destroyed.
In the Star Wars franchise, Grievous commandeered the Confederacy of Independent Systems' Droid Army during the Clone Wars. He learned the Jedi Arts from Sith Lord Count Dooku, and feels the need to announce this to everyone he duels. He was a socially-awkward robot with asthma, which really appealed to the type of people who watch Star Wars. As a result, Grievous was voted the Weirdest, Coolest Character to Ever Be in a Star Wars Movie by the TheForce.net.
Time takes a death stick[edit]
Grievous was born on Kalee, an unpronounceable planet where lizards evolved into homosapien-like creatures. This large and exotic planet had a regenerative core of gasoline, and was at war with the Huk species (politically-correct name: Yam'rii) over this large gas surplus. The planet was able to draw this gasoline from the core thanks to its gigantic gasoline company that had a large generator that was directly connected with the core of the planet. This giant generator drew ten thousand gallons of gasoline from the core of the planet a day, then the core would regenerate that gasoline so it could be drawn again the following day; Grievous was the janitor of this colossal company.
Grievous was the oldest of his siblings. His family was rich and owned their own oil monopoly. However, Grievous was also the underdog of the family, always out having parties and only being a "C-" student. The results of his actions led him to becoming a janitor while everyone else in his family had their own powerful company. Grievous was a real slacker of a janitor, as he was usually sleeping on the job and was a hardcore chain smoker.
Grievous's entire life changed on that fateful night. Grievous was actually doing his job for once and was mopping near the generator. It was a holiday and so the company closed early and the generator still had a few gallons of gasoline stored within it. Grievous had just finished mopping and pulled out a death stick. He then lit it with a match and threw the match away. A Huk, who had snuck into the building, picked up the match and threw it at the generator. The gasoline lit on fire and the generator exploded, which then caused the core it was connected with to explode as well. Grievous and his entire planet was incinerated in the massive explosion, officially making it the most terrible, horrible, no-good worst day ever in the history of Unpronounceable Planet.
Reborn as a piece of junk[edit]
Grievous spent the next few months in a coma, paying for his stupidity that destroyed his whole planet. However, he was dragged out of his personal Hell when a couple of scientists brought him back to life. When Grievous awoke, he found that every part of his body was itchy and every time he scratched, he made this really irritating squeaking noise. Grievous then looked in a mirror and let out a super-sonic girly scream when he discovered the truth: he was now a walking toaster. Grievous then asked the scientists what happened; they told him that they were scientists from the planet Muunilinst, who had recovered his eyes, heart, internal organs, and brain (the only parts of his body that were still in one piece). They decided to use these components in their experiment to create an army of advanced robotic walking toaster-warriors from living creatures. These warriors would give them the power they needed to win the Clone Wars against the Galactic Republic that somehow oppressed them, and completely demolish it into the ground. Grievous was so depressed and upset that he ran to a local bar to drown his sorrows in Jawa juice, only to discover that he didn't have a movable mouth. He then broke down in tears, until he discovered that his new body did not produce organic fluids. Needless to say, everything in his life now officially sucked.
Grievous eventually returned to the scientists since he had nowhere else to go. For a couple weeks, Grievous was depressed and would not come out of his room. But eventually he returned to his old self, by sleeping a lot and constantly watching soap operas. Eventually his room started to smell and the scientists dragged him out, leaving deep and permanent marks in the floor from Greevy's spider-legs. At first Grievous did not respond well to them, but he started to open up to them and learned all about science. He learned all about technology and chemicals; he even discovered why gasoline explodes when you throw a match on it. Grievous soon accepted the scientists as though they were his own family, and even at times referred to the head scientist, San Hill, as "Daddy".
Travels and acting career[edit]
After watching soap operas for years, Grievous decided that he wanted to be an actor and break away from science. Grievous then heard about a place called Galactic City, located on the galaxy's capital planet known as Coruscant. Grievous said goodbye to the scientists that raised him and boarded a craft to Coruscant. Upon arrival at Galactic City, Grievous was immediately showered with fear and panic as everyone kept about fifty feet from him. There were even some people who brought blasters and pitchforks that chased him into the holographic woods. Grievous tried for many months to sneak into the city, but every time he tried, the innocents ran in terror and the clone guards opened fire.
Eventually, the warriors managed to shoot Grievous and brought him into a strange government building. He was then brought before a group of people that questioned him about why he was here. He then learned why everyone treated him this way... he was an illegal immigrant. Grievous spent the next few years filling out paperwork and doing all kinds of stuff to become a "legal" immigrant. Finally he finished it all and was able to officially move into Galactic City, though he had to take up residence in The Works because he couldn't afford live in the Uscru District right away. After years of saving (and partially stealing) money, Grievous was finally able to move to the Uscru District, home of Coruscant's finest in entertainment.
Grievous was so happy to finally be in Galactic City; his years of hard labor and suffering were finally going to pay off, and he was going to be a big star. Grievous started up his career by making his debut on Centaxday Night Live. However, his performance was met with a negative response due to the squeaky machine sounds he made whenever he moved, and poor Greevy was kicked off the show after one episode. Grievous then tried acting on soap operas, but unfortunately his odd appearance caused audiences to laugh at all the shows he worked on and he was kicked off a large amount of soap operas. Eventually, Grievous found success acting as a prop for a variety of sci-fi films. Needless to say, he was very upset with his new career.
Star Wars: Clone Wars[edit]
Eventually, Grievous found success in 22 BBY when he was approached by Russian cartoonist Genndy Tartakovsky, known for his over-the-top faux-anime works like Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack. Genndy was working on the Clone Wars animated microseries, based off of the legendary franchise known to many as Star Wars, a documentary series about the galaxy's various conflicts. Genndy asked Grievous if he was interested in doing an acting role, to which Grievous accepted the offer. Genndy liked Grievous's horrifying appearance so much that he actually cast Grievous as himself, and even made him the General of the Separatist Droid Army. The Grievous in the cartoon show was a merciless and athletic fighter who hunted Jedi for their lightsabers, while doing all kinds of Spider-Man- and Terminator-esque stunts (such as walking on walls, walking on ceilings, and stealing pies). In his debut appearance on Hypori, he took on and pwnzored five Jedi at once, killing two of them and wounding three. Grievous portrayed his character using a cold British assassin-like voice and instantly became a breakout hit.
Soon Grievous was known around the galaxy. His character was well received by Star Wars fans, and he became one of the franchise's most popular villains. He was also beloved by the general public, and Grievous received an Emmy Award for his chilling performance in Clone Wars. Soon Grievous started acting for other TV shows and movies and received even more praise. Fans and critics watched every show that Grievous ever had a part in, even if a number of them were truly Bantha poodoo, but no one cared; as long as Grievous was acting in it, they were happy. Grievous was such a success that he even became a regular at Coruscant Comic-Con, but he stopped attending when some rabid fans stripped him of his clothes during one convention, so that they could smell his "enchanted" oil-like body odor. Some other fans wanted to tear Greevy apart and keep some of his pieces as souvenirs that they could treasure forever. Grievous barely escaped with his life on that faithful day. All these events told Grievous that he was now finally the famous actor that he had always wanted to be.
Trouble with Lucas[edit]
However, Grievous made a fatal mistake when he took up an offer with Star Wars head honcho George Lucas. Lucas was impressed with Grievous's performance in Genndy Wars, and asked the General to portray himself for a live-action role in the final (not really) Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith. Grievous accepted the offer, which was a major mistake on his behalf. Lucas promised Grievous that he would give him a huge role and even dedicated much of the film's death stick advertisements to him, with the General being hyped up to be just as awesome in ROTS as he was in Clone Wars.
However, despite all the promises, Grievous was only in a handful of scenes and played only a small role in the movie. To make matters even worse, the aged Lucas started to get "creative" and decided to make some changes to Grievous's character, wanting Greevy to be "Dracula Droid". Lucas did away with all the fast, athletic, acrobatic killing machine stunts that Grievous was famous for, and instead reduced his character to a cowardly ground-based fighter with a slow, awkward, clumsy fighting style. Lucas also did away with the cold British assassin voice that had made Grievous famous, and instead had him dubbed by a sound editor, Matthew Wood, doing a sniveling Russian accent (perhaps in tribute to Tartakovsky) put through a voice filter. Previously, professional actors like Gary Oldman or John Rhys-Davies had auditioned to do Grievous justice, but were ultimately turned down. Lucas also did even more damage to Grievous by making him cough and wheeze, believing that asthmatic portable dialysis machines were "truly unique evils." By the time the movie was done, Grievous's entire character was pretty much damaged beyond recognition, just a few sleek hand-drawn fragments inside a stiff CGI shell.
When he saw the movie, Grievous was disgusted with what Hackas had done to him. Making matters worse, because of his poorly-redone character, many fans started to despise Grievous and never looked at him the same way again. Grievous vowed that he would never do another acting job with Lucas again. However, Greevy didn't realize in time that you never refuse George Lucas, or you will pay for it with your life. Outraged that an actor actually quit working for him, Lucas teamed up with Avatar Dave "Cowboy Hat" Filoni and created a new CGI animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, featuring a CGI Grievous. Lucas put all his effort into insulting Grievous by having this CGI Grievous contain all the flaws he had in the movie, and making him fail against all of his foes including Padawans and gungans. It wasn't long before Lucas's take on Grievous caused the cyborg's entire acting career to finally crumble beneath his clawed spider-feet. Filoni responded to the complaints about Grievous's weakness as follows:
| “ | Grievous is an excellent character, and a personal friend of mine. We are always looking for loopholes to hand him victories on a silver platter, but you must also understand that Grievous is not the overwhelmingly powerful, feared warrior, that Genndy believed him to be. I have discussed this in detail with George and he has stated that no Jedi would be 'afraid' of Grievous. It defies their training. Our Grievous is written and directed to mesh with the films, not Genndy's over-the-top fanfic. If Grievous was too competent a warrior, or an actual threatening opponent, then Sidious would have no need for Anakin.
Do not worry, we have plans for Grievous, and in those plans for the future we will show him shacking up with Jar Jar and the kowakian monkey-lizard. |
” |
— Dave Filoni on why George wants Grievous to be so weak
|
A New Hope for failure[edit]
Grievous was going through a midlife crisis; with his career destroyed and his money running out, he had no reason to live anymore. He made an attempt to hang himself, but his heavy metal (referring to his body, not his music collection) broke the rope and he fell through five floors of his apartment building. His neighbors then kicked him out of the apartment building and he wandered through the Blade Runner streets of Coruscant. Life was hard, especially since he lived in an area with lots of rain. Then one night he wondered into a nearby church and begged for help, then the whole room filled with light. At first Grievous thought that his rusty armor had finally killed him and he was going through the portal to Heaven. He then thanked the Force for this moment, but he soon discovered that this was not the case. It was 9:00 on a Taungsday morning and the church ceremony was beginning.
Grievous was getting ready to leave when he bumped into a special guest at the church...Techno Union foreman Wat Tambor. After their historic meeting in the church, Tambor and Grievous became best friends, and Tambor gave Grievous shelter at his home until he could find a new place. Grievous learned that Tambor was a man of science who desperately tried to show everyone that global warming was real (with no success). Being thankful for helping him and having learned science from the Munns, Grievous soon started to join Tambor in his presentations and thanks to his extremely eerie eyes, the galaxy soon started to believe in Tambor's theories.
After a certain amount of presentations, Grievous decided to pursue his own career in science and soon rose to being a renowned professor, best known for his studies on climate change-induced single-biome planets. In 19 BBY, he won an award for Most-Believed Theories of the Year. Tambor eventually upgraded Grievous to the N-K Necrosis, a combat droid who sucks carbon dioxide from planets' air with his chest ventilators, thus reducing global warming. This CO2-sucking made Grievous cough even worse than before, but the General didn't mind, as he was sacrificing himself for the greater good.
Personality and traits[edit]
Grievous also had a life outside of science, acting, and the war that he greatly enjoyed. He was usually out helping with the Separatist community and even opened a special class for Neimoidian children explaining why you should never throw a match on gasoline or let your guard down when facing Jedi Masters like Motherfucking Mace Windu. He also dedicated money to various charities and helped out at local school communities, and periodically helped Nute Gunray and Count Dooku out with their Separatist propaganda documentaries. Grievous also helped out his neighborhood by driving children to school in his hovercarpool when their mothers were too busy.
When he was not helping with the community, crushing Republic worlds, or doing scientific experiments, Grievous liked to watch soap operas and Space Jeopardy!; he also went bowling every other Tuesday night with Dooku and his other friends (they are currently trying to make it into a national bowling tournament, though they have yet to achieve this goal). Grievous was constantly attempting to restart his relationship with high school sweetheart/ex-girlfriend/Jedi Master/fellow Star Wars actor Shaak Ti, but to no avail. Later, during the Battle of Coruscant, Grievous tied Ti up in a stun-net of his wrist-cables, as revenge for her dumping him for Ki-Adi-Mundi during the Battle of Hypori.
