General Grievous - CW [A] - Basic

Through the creative vision of Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Cartoon Network, the Clone Wars are brought to life in an exciting new series of short animated chapters. A unique animation style captures the drama of this epic period in galactic history along with its outstanding heroes and adversaries. Noble Jedi warriors lead Clone Troopers into battle against the evil Separatist forces and their droid armies. Anakin, Obi-Wan, Yoda and their comrades struggle against the rising power of the dark side and confront personal challenges against a backdrop of war-torn planets.

There is a new enemy in the Separatist army and his name is General Grievous. Imposing, threatening and focused on destroying the Jedi are all great ways to describe this new Separatist leader who has been trained in the Jedi arts courtesy of Count Dooku. First revealing himself to the Jedi during the Battle of Hypori, General Grievous considered it playtime defeating and killing the Jedi one by one and gravely injuring three survivors. That battle, as seen in the Clone Wars micro-series Volume 1: Chapter 20, was a turning point in the Clone Wars and the Jedi soon realized that they had more to worry about than they first realized. General Grievous added a new drama to the Clone Wars, and fans knew he would be in this multimedia event for the long haul as he was a main character in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. In fact, the final chapter 25 of the Clone Wars leads right up to the opening crawl of the film. Injured severely in battle where he had to don cybernetic protection to keep his organic parts fully functioning, General Grievous is now only a shell of the warrior he once was visually, but has attained a whole new skill set of fighting thanks to the help of former Jedi Count Dooku.

Hasbro decided that the Clone Wars [Animated] line needed one more wave of figures to coordinate with Volume 2 of the Clone Wars micro-series. Released in January 2005, General Grievous, among others, was released prior to the Revenge Of The Sith line and it was collectors’ first opportunity to see this warlord, albeit in animated form. As a character who is full of movement, Hasbro once again went with simple articulation, but between the crouched position and the extra swivel articulation in the forearms, we’re happy to report that this is actually a very cool action figure. Although waist articulation is included, General Grievous doesn’t have any hip articulation (which would have made him perfect in our opinion). But all is not lost because the movement you want to see on his figure is the upper body and there is plenty here to achieve the poses you desire. General Grievous towers over all the figures in the Clone Wars [Animated] line. And to give you a better sense of his scale, he is taller while is a permanent slouched over position. If he was standing upright he would have been even taller. This action figure of General Grievous is very neat. He doesn’t look happy and it’s evident that he is obsessed with finding members of the Jedi Order to kill so he can collect their lightsaber hilts as trophies.

We’re quite pleased with how this figure turned out, and we’re very happy that Hasbro kept the scale accurate because they definitely had to use more materials than the average figure in this line. Included with General Grievous are two lightsabers: one blue and one green. Each hand is cupped to accept each lightsaber without issue. And then the swivel forearms allow you to have him swing and/or hold the fully lit lightsabers in pretty much any way you wish. He has very large clawed feet. They lay flatly on the ground and behind him is a large flowing cape that is permanently affixed to the figure itself. (A removable cape would have been appreciate here.) The paint operations are very, very nice. General Grievous has a baby blue base color accented with white and gray details as well as piercing yellow eyes. There is a lot of attitude captured in his eyes which is a testament to excellent paint operations more than a great sculpt (which is it as well). From the lightsaber hilt trophies attached to his belt to the brilliant design of this new character in Star Wars, Hasbro sets the bar high for General Grievous in the Clone Wars [Animated] line. A large character like this commands a little more focus from the designers, but it’s evident that Hasbro didn’t hold much back to deliver a great figure for the animated line.