Destroy Malevolence

"A plan is only as good as those who see it through."

- Moral

"Destroy Malevolence" is the fourth episode of Season One of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series. It is the fourth episode of the series overall. It aired on October 17, 2008 on Cartoon Network. Its title was first revealed on Anthony Daniels' website.

Official description
Padmé Amidala and C-3PO are taken hostage by General Grievous, leaving Anakin and Obi-Wan to save the Senator and complete the destruction of the Malevolence''. Anakin and Obi-Wan chase down the Malevolence, hoping to destroy it before it can escape. But when Padmé and C-3PO are captured and held hostage aboard, the Jedi are forced to hatch a new plan.''

Plot summary
During the Battle of the Kaliida Nebula, the Malevolence is left heavily damaged and trailed by three Star Destroyers. Unable to jump to hyperspace, Grievous is forced to buy time. Luckily for him, Darth Sidious and Count Dooku had arranged for Senator Amidala (with C-3PO in her company) to fly directly onto his ship, herself believing that she was heading for negotiations with the InterGalactic Banking Clan Supreme Executive. Once Padmé comes out of hyperspace, she is pulled into the warship via a tractor beam. She manages to contact the Republic forces, asking them to continue their attacks, regardless of her own safety. However, Anakin orders their ships to cease their attack.

Padmé rigs her ship's engines to explode so that when Grievous comes on board to capture her, the galaxy would be rid of him. Unfortunately, he survives the blast and has his droids search for her and Threepio. Anakin heads a rescue mission composed of him, Obi-Wan and Artoo to save her. The Twilight then latches onto the Malevolence by an emergency air lock and they board the ship and manage to contact the senator, who gives them her location. They set a rendezvous point at the warship's transportation system. They each get on separate trains. Anakin uses the Force to bring Padmé over to him because a super battle droid destroyed the rest of Padmé's track. Their train goes into a tunnel, where they enjoy a brief romantic moment alone; Obi-Wan tries to get Threepio, but he gets hit by another train in transit. As they are about to kiss, Anakin is contacted by Obi-Wan about Threepio.

Anakin plans on rescuing him, but Padmé informs the Jedi that the hyperdrive is close to finishing; Obi-Wan goes to destroy the hyperdrive. However, Grievous learns of this and sends droids down to guard the drive. Meanwhile, Anakin and Padmé reach the bridge when the ship is almost ready to jump to hyperspace. They quickly destroy all the droids and rig the ship's navicomputer. They then leave the bridge, hiding the broken droids before others could find out what happened.

Obi-Wan duels with Grievous after dispatching his droids and manages to avoid the cyborg's clutches. He reaches the Twilight along with the rest of the group and as they leave the ship, Grievous pursues in his starfighter. The droids on the warship then try to jump to hyperspace, only to discover that Anakin rigged the navicomputer to set a course right into the moon. Grievous watches in horror as the ship crashes into a nearby moon, then flees the system.

While Grievous was not killed on the Malevolence, his warship is finally destroyed and Senator Amidala is rescued from the ship. The loss hurts Grievous's credibility with Count Dooku, the former ending communications to the count due to the shame of the ship being destroyed.

Cast

 * Matt Lanter as Anakin Skywalker
 * James Arnold Taylor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Plo Koon
 * Catherine Taber as Padmé Amidala
 * Matthew Wood as General Grievous, Battle droids
 * Anthony Daniels as C-3PO
 * Ashley Eckstein as Ahsoka Tano
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Clone troopers
 * Tom Kane as Admiral Wullf Yularen, Narrator
 * Corey Burton as Count Dooku
 * Olivia d'Abo as Luminara Unduli

Behind the scenes
Some ideas from the original script of the episode included: Quarsh Panaka being captured alongside with Padmé and being brutally murdered by Grievous; a lightsaber duel between Grievous and Plo Koon on the exterior of Malevolence in space; and Jedi sneaking aboard the Malevolence by freezing themselves in carbonite to get past droid bio scans and radiation beams. While the first two ideas were eventually abandoned completely, "the carbonite infiltration maneuver" was later adapted into the stories of The Clone Wars: Shipyards of Doom, and the Season 3 episode "The Citadel."

Additionally, Anakin's original plan of entering the Malevolence was a foolish hyperspace micro-jump to deploy the Twilight centimeters from the ship's hull. Padmé and C-3PO were also originally rushing to the battle site to aid in the evacuation of the Kaliida Shoals Medical Center, but these were also changed after script revisions.

When General Grievous and his droids surround Obi-Wan near the hyperdrive, he says "hello there." Obi-Wan would later repeat this line to the General in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and would even later say the line to R2-D2 during his debut appearance in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.

Obi-Wan's duel with Grievous, however, would end up creating continuity problems with Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith. In the film, at the start of the duel between Kenobi and Grievous on Utapau, Grievous says "You fool! I have been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku!" as it was the first time they had fought each other. Over the course of the television show, however, Kenobi and Grievous dueled each other on several occasions, with Grievous always showing great skill in lightsaber combat.

Anakin's comments about spinning "being a good trick" are references to his line in Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.

The final frame of the episode shows all these prequel characters (Anakin, Obi Wan ,Padmé, C-3PO, and R2-D2) being depicted together for the first time. (They were scattered across different planets in the films)