Why is General Grievous in Star Wars?
So jump forward to 2005. George Lucas is putting together his prequel trilogy. Everything is ramped up to eleven. The Clone Wars is ending, Anakin is getting darker, Yoda is going to fight Palpatine, the Clonetrooper are going to go rogue, The Jedi are going to get slaughtered, Padmes going to die and Obi-Wan really hasn't got much to do until the final act when he has to take down the newly named Darth Vader. So, like Lucas does, he generates another bad guy. Every episode has one. New Hope has Tarkin, Empire has Boba, Jedi has Jabba, Menace has Maul (given that the main bad guys are the Trade Federation really) and Attack of the Clones has Jango Fett. Revenge of the Sith introduced us to General Grievous. Now, the entire prequel trilogy was to show Anakins path to the Darth Vader suit but Lucas layered all that with enough information for us to accept the change. Generally the road to Darth Vader was depicted via Sith characters. Episode 1 showed us the Sith set up of a master and an apprentice and at the end left us with a vacancy. Episode II showed us that Jedi could turn to the darkside and some of the reasons they may do it via the story of fallen Jedi Knight Count Dooku. Episode III didn't have a new Sith until the final act instead Lucas essentially showed us that there was technology enough in the Star Wars galaxy that even the slightest of human remains could still be housed within technology to keep someone alive. This was via General Grievous, the first non-Sith to show us a stage in Anakin's looming future. George Lucas decided that this new character would also have lightsabers? This is now a fact we all accept because frankly Grievous rocked the four sabers but think back to before seeing Episode II - this didn't sit right remember. A non-force sensitive character waving lightsabers about and actually holding his own against Jedi no way! But maybe there's more to it than that.