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, airing 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
After 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 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, as her husband, 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. 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 as their train goes into a tunnel; Obi-Wan tries to get 3PO, but in transit he gets hit by another train. As they are about to kiss, Anakin is contacted by Obi-Wan about 3PO.

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, then they leave the ship, with Grievous in pursuit 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 and 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

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

Behind the scenes
Some ideas from the original script of the episode included: 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 by writer Henry Gilroy into the story of Star Wars: The Clone Wars Volume 1: Shipyards of Doom.

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.

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

This is the first time in which all the prequel characters of Obi-Wan, C-3PO, R2-D2, Padmé and Anakin are all displayed in the same sequence; they are all displayed in the final frame of the episode.