Kit Fisto and the Lair of Grievous

Jedi Master Kit Fisto and his padawan Nahdar Vebb (the fish-faced dude with
the blue lightsaber). Click to Embiggen for detail. This is not an illustration.
It is a screenshot from the actual episode. Yes, the Clone Wars animation
frickin' rocks. It's the best I've ever seen in a t.v. series.

Kit Fisto was a Nautolan (the name comes from a nautilus sea creature, because he has tentacles on his head) Jedi Master. During the Clone Wars his padawan Nahdar Vebb got killed by General Grievous. Kit often got deployed on water worlds, because he had the ability to breathe underwater.

Kit's own life ended abruptly fighting Darth Sidious alongside Mace Windu in Revenge of the Sith. And no, the part where Kit defends himself basically lasts five seconds. I always thought that was b.s., but I guess Lucas just really wanted Darth Sidious to come across as someone you cannot mess with unless you are Yoda or Mace Windu or Darth Vader. Those are the only three people that ever stood a chance against him. Sigh. Imagine if Mace and Yoda had showed up in Revenge of the Sith to arrest Palpatine instead of Kit and some Jedi that I don't even recognize. I think the movies would have ended up different for sure.

Anyway, back to the Cartoon Networks: The Clone Wars and the role Kit Fisto plays.

Kit shows up in the episode "The Lair of Grievous", which is episode 10 of season 1 and entirely excellent. Here's the blurb from it:

Viceroy Gunray escapes!

En route to Coruscant to stand trial

for war crimes, evil Separatist leader

Nute Gunray has broken free of his

Jedi escort. With the help of Count

Dooku's sinister agents, the villainous

viceroy has made a daring getaway.

Alerted to the bold prison break,

Jedi Master Kit Fisto has traced the

stolen ship to a remote system,

hoping to recapture Gunray and

return him to justice.

Kit and his padawan follow the tracking beacon to the planet Vassek, but Nute is gone. However, in cowardly Nute style, Gunray has left behind a gloating hologram which then transforms into a hologram of Dooku. Dooku then says, "You can't have Gunray, but I've got an alternative prize for you." The "alternative prize" ends up being General Grievous who really is quite a badass robot with multiple limbs and multiple lightsabers. A battle ensues in which General Grievous uses the fortress on the planet to his advantage.

General Grievous makes a pretty good bad guy, I think. Click to Embiggen.

Grievous and Kit play a cat and mouse game. The general sits in the control room and slowly whittles away at Fisto's clone support and then gets Kit separated from his padawan. Grievous makes short work of Kit's apprentice. Below, I've embedded a clip from the episode showing Kit Fisto fighting Grievous. It's a pretty sweet lightsaber battle and really shows how great the animation is. I like the two lightsaber fighting style. It just looks awesome. If you are a fan of Star Wars, you really should take the time to watch this clip.

Come back tomorrow for my post on Jedi Master Luminara Unduli (she's one of my favorites).