General Grievous - Mini Busts

A brilliant strategist unhindered by compassion or mercy, General Grievous was the face of the enemy in the eyes of the Republic. Within the twisted melding of flesh and metal, beat the heart of a remorseless killer. Grievous's precision-engineered artificial body consisted of a pressurized gut-sack which held his vital organs and a skull-like mask that contained his living eyes and brain. Making his presence more unpleasant was a persistent wet, hackling cough coming from his ravaged lungs, inflicted from a battle with Mace Windu.

The General Grievous Mini Bust changed the way Gentle Giant Ltd. designed Mini Busts. Due the very nature of General Grievous’s shape, new ways of bringing his equally organic and synthetic body parts into their polystone format. We think they got it right. In a maybe not-so-surprising move, General Grievous comes packaged modularly and it is the collector who must assemble him to display in his/her collection. General Grievous comes in six individual parts: body, base, left arms attachment, right arms attachment and two lightsaber blades (one of which is blue and the other green). Gentle Giant Ltd was faithful to all of the unique details of General Grievous and his scale has been perfectly replicated as he “sits”/”stands” taller than the average Mini Bust. There is so much detail that we’ll try to organize it all here, but we’re bound to miss of few of them as Gentle Giant Ltd. packed an enormous quantity of his characteristics in this high-end collectible.

General Grievous is mostly two types of matter: the organic bone and organ parts and the metallic exoskeleton. Although both pieces have been designed in polystone, the artists who painted the piece were extremely careful to decorate the differing parts to make them look they way that they should. The bone parts have a very faint marbling deco added while the metal parts of his body have a brushed steel look to them. His eyes in this scale are not terribly large, so we’re impressed with how well the yellow peers through at you when they’re set so deeply in his bone facial structure. General Grievous comes with two separate arm attachments. His left arm attachment has an arm pointing in the air and the other is holding a lightsaber hilt. His right arm attachment however is holding a lightsaber hilt in addition to a droid blaster (one accessory in each “hand”). The weapons are sculpted with extraordinary detail too. It's quite remarkable.

General Grievous has an edition size of 7000 pieces. This isn’t small by any means, but we wonder if it will meet the demand as the years go by because he is really the “symbol” of Episode III. His popularity has grown already and he is immediately recognizable now and a favorite character with both kids and collectors. Only time will tell is enough have been manufactured. Take into account how many of these 7000 units have been damaged from the various moves from one home to another. And who knows how many were written off because they arrived damaged to retailers and subsequently thrown away. And then add in all the collectors who bought this piece already. It’s impossible to gauge isn’t it? It’s just because this Mini Bust is extremely fragile. We’re more than sure that an inordinate amount of them have succumbed to irreversible damage. But if you’re fortunate enough to have secured one for your collection, treat it with gentleness and kindness. Even a surly Separatist like General Grievous needs some tender loving kindness too.