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Should have General Grevious been a reconstructed Darth Maul?

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Over on the SW Preservation and Edits threads, there has been some talk of whether the prequels could have benefited if the disposable villian of General Grevious would have been a cyborg version of Darth Maul. So I thought I'd bring the discussion to a bit wider audience. Could Episode III been better if Darth Maul were back for revenge?
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General Grevious definitely needed something to make him more interesting. A new name wouldn't have been bad either.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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When I first heard about General Grevious, I thought that's exactly what the character was going to be. To sort of tie the first and third episodes together and to fore shadow the Anakin/Vader character. So my answer is yes.
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When I first heard about General Grevious, I thought that's exactly what the character was going to be. To sort of tie the first and third episodes together and to fore shadow the Anakin/Vader character.


I thought the exact same thing, really. If it can be pulled off professionally, I think its a good idea, but nothing should suffer too much because of it (like the pacing/flow of a scene, or a good piece of music etc.).
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Okay, As cool as it would be to see I have to vote NO for 2 major reasons.

Firstly you all seem to ignore that Darth Maul was also a throwaway Villain. A pawn. He failed in his mission and yet Sidious [In the guise of Palpatine] came out on top and acheived his main goals. The same goes for both GG and Dooku but People seem to like Maul a whole lot more, Probably cuz he kept his mouth shut most of the time...

WHY would Sidious bother putting the effort into rebuilding Maul? What he now needed was
1 - A charismatic leader for the CIS [dooku]
2 - A Military Leader for the CIS [GG]
3 - Someone who could bring down the Jedi order from the inside [Anakin]

Darth Maul could fill none of these roles.

Secondly the two characters have nothing in common as far as I can tell. GG bears no similarity to Maul at all...
- He's always talking
- He relies on other to get the job done
- HE IS A COWARD
- His lightsaber tactics leave a lot to be desired.

Do you see any of those traits in Maul?

Plus i don't think it can be done convincingly - his eyes aren't even the same shape or size.

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No

If this was the case what you'd have is a once sith lord being artificially kept alive via cybernetic enhancements. Hmmm... where have I seen that before?

The fact that Grievous was half humanoid half robot shows us Vader was nothing new nothing special which is lame as hell. I don't dislike Grievous' name or his moustache twirling villainy I just dislike him being. It's kind of like wait we've run out of ideas let's make him like the villain everyone is watching these movies for.

Same with Dooku. A once respected and powerful Jedi becomes disenchanted and goes to the dark side. Please. But that's a whole other topic for discussion.

"Well here's a big bag of rock salt" - Patton Oswalt

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I say yes mostly because General Grievous couldn't be any worse than he ended up being. But Johnny Ringo's points as to why he couldn't fill any of those roles makes perfect sense. As for how their personalities are different, well, if he had been a cybernetic Darth Maul, those horrible personality traits wouldn't exist!

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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I say yes mostly because General Grievous couldn't be any worse than he ended up being.


Cough Jar jar binks cough.

It could have been far worse, I get what you are saying though.
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Yeah, but they'd already done Jar-Jar. Are you saying he could have ended up worse than Jar-Jar? Or are you saying that they should have made Grievous a cybernetic enhancement of Jar-Jar? ^_~

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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It would at least give General Grevious more reason to be there
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Interesting that this is being brought up. I was perusing a Star Wars book at Borders Books, I think it was, and Lo and behold! there was an artist's rendering of Darth Maul as a very Grievous-esque half-cyborg.

Whether or not that was an official Lucasfilm consideration for the movie or not, I don't know. Seems like a distinct possibility given the fact that Grievous was developed late in the Episode 3 scripting process.
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No that was done for...or at least used for one of the comics. I can't remember the title but Maul somehow tracked Obiwan to Tatooine set sometime between the trilogies IIRC
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I've got the same thread going on over at the GalacticSenate. You can compare and contrast answers if you'd like.
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a117/Sluggomatic2000/CyborgDarthMaul.jpg
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Originally posted by: Johnny Ringo
No that was done for...or at least used for one of the comics. I can't remember the title but Maul somehow tracked Obiwan to Tatooine set sometime between the trilogies IIRC


Oh, okay, cool.

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I vote Yes.

Maul being Grievous gives Grievous some depth, and makes him not so much of a throwaway character. It would also show that Palpatine has a history of resurrecting his apprentices and putting them in mechanical suits.

I think Dooku actually works better as a tragic figure who is misled, instead of a genuine Sith apprentice.

But when it comes to making all this happen in an edit of Episode III, I have serious doubts that something can be done in a convincing matter.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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I checked out Sluggo's thread at Galacticsenate, and just about everyone (so far) says Maul and Grievous should be separate.

Interestingly, the reason often cited is that Grievous was a very strong character in the EU.

I suddenly have this mental image of the EU as a massive structure of intricate metalwork, whose sole purpose is to elevate a pile of crap high into the sky.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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Yeah, the EU often seems like a giant Gaudi structure.

The thread over at the GS is typical for there. I guess I can see where they are coming from, but I think movies are weak when they rely upon extensive outside material to be understood or enjoyed. Episode III (and Grevious) should be able to stand on its own without the EU. If it needs a crutch (like the EU) to prop it up, it is a sign of weakness.

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Originally posted by: Erikstormtrooper
I vote Yes.

Maul being Grievous gives Grievous some depth, and makes him not so much of a throwaway character. It would also show that Palpatine has a history of resurrecting his apprentices and putting them in mechanical suits.



I think that would make it weaker. The first time I saw AOTC I was really enjoying watching Dooku. I kept wondering whether he had a lightsaber and would use any Jedi abilities...But then when he casually threw out some Sith lightning I wasn't happy. It just took away what I loved from the climax of ROTJ.

And by the way...Dooku WAS misled. although as shocked as he looked he didn't vocally protest when Sidious told Anakin to decapitate him.


Remember, Sidious was on a quest to obtain the power he needed. If he had access to everything form the start he'd have no need to mess with theatrics.
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I voted yes. However:

If we are talking about going back in time to alter the Episode 3 script (and therefore the final movie), I would say eliminate Greivous altogether, he was fucking pointless and served no purpose.

But if George said 'No, I really want there to be some kind of cyborg villain in Episode 3 who has 8 arms and shit then in that case I would say 'well let's make him Darth Maul back from the dead' - It ties the episodes together, saves us from the introduction of yet another character, and also suggests that Palpatine was dabbling in cybernetics before Vader. Greivous/Maul would be a prototype for Vader, in a way.

If we are talking about trying to make a fan-edit that converts greivous into a ressurrected Maul I would again say no - I don't think it's do-able.

War does not make one great.

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I vote no to making him Maul. I vote yes to improving the character in his own right. Make him less of a joke, a coward and a let down.

He needs a new voice / dialogue. The potential for alternate dialogue is so great because you don't have to worry about lip syncing...

Perhaps make him some sort of super advance AI droid instead of a cyborg alien. Some touching up of the CG would be needed to hide the organics.
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Yes, Darth Maul name just sucked, General Greivous name was worse. However, Darth Maul should have been a recurring character all the way up until Darth Vader's rise, a bridging of sorts.
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Personally, I think that Grevious being Maul would of helped Grevious not be such a throwaway villain. But no, in the end, Grevious being Maul doesn't really make sense. But as a whole, I don't think that Grevious made much sense, other than a cool character that would sell action figures and gotta have something new and cool looking for the final film. Personally, I think they should of just done away with the character and let Dooku live longer, and fill the role Grevious had. It would of gotten rid of a waste of a villian, and given Dooku the extra screentime he deserved. He was built up too much in AOTC and Clone Wars to just get beheaded in the first 15 minutes of ROTS like he did.
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Personally, I think General Grevious should be George Lucas having entered his own creation and bent on destroying it. If Adywan can do what he did with his Revisited edit, then surely it is possible to pull this off. All we have to do is digitally replace Grevious with George, or paste George's face over Grevious', or put a beard and fannel shirt on Grevious or something along those lines, then we leave everything else about Grevious as it is. Once this is done, Grevious' character would suddenly made perfect sense. I do think it would be good if we could find some one to redub each instance of the name "General Grevious" being spoken and change it to "General George". General George just has a more sinister ring to it.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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I voted yes. All the hype that went into Maul and all he did was kill Liam Neeson. Such a waste.
I'd like a qui-gon jinn please with an Obi-Wan to go.

Red heads ROCK. Blondes do not rock. Nuff said.

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VADER: Let me look on you with my own eyes...

LUKE: Dad, where are your eyebrows?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WO_S6UgkQk0