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| “ | Caesar had his legions, Napoleon had his armies, I have my divisions: TV, news, magazines. And by midnight tonight, I'll have reached out to and influenced more people than anybody in the history of this planet, save God himself. And the best He ever managed was the Sermon on the Mount. (Bond: You really are quite insane.) The distance between insanity and genius.... is only measured by success. | „ |
| ~ Carver gloating over his plan to take over all the world's media |
Elliot Carver is the main antagonist in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. He is the ruthless CEO of the Carver Media Group Network who plots to ignite a war between the United Kingdom and China in order to destroy the Chinese government and use the new government in order to obtain exclusive broadcasting rights in China.
He was portrayed by Jonathan Pryce, who also portrayed Mr. Dark in Something Wicked This Way Comes, Seamus O'Rourke in Ronin, General Vavarin Delatombe in The Brothers Grimm, Jacob Marley in the 2022 Netflix adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Paul Dellenbach in Renaissance, and the High Sparrow in Game of Thrones.
Biography[]
Past[]
Elliot Carver was born in Hong Kong, officially an orphan. He is the illegitimate son of a German woman who died in childbirth and Lord Roverman, a press tycoon. A Chinese family took the boy for a one-time fee of 50 pounds. 30 years later, Carver confronted and blackmailed Roverman into suicide and then subsequently took over his media empire.
Elliot Carver went to college in Hong Kong and received a degree in the communication arts. He was hired as a meteorologist at a Hong Kong Television Station; a few years later, he became the anchorman of the station. He often sexually harassed his female coworkers, to the point that one of them fled Hong Kong to get away from him.
At some point he met and fell in love with Paris McKenna, eventually marrying her.
Becoming a Media Figure[]
In the present, Carver is a billionaire international media mogul of the German-based mass media company, the Carver Media Group. He frequently uses his influence to gain an advantage for his firm or wreak havoc on opponents. Moreover, CMG doesn't merely report the news – it creates it; CMGN is the first to report on scandals and disasters because it causes them to happen. A scene of Carver's daily teleconference with the various heads of his divisions demonstrates this: Jeff Hobbs reports "floods in Pakistan, riots in Paris and a plane crash in California"; Philip Jones has all current releases of CMG's software are loaded with bugs that will force consumers to upgrade for years, etc. To boost his viewership, Carver instructs Tom Wallace to call the President of the United States and threaten to release a scandalous video of him with a cheerleader in a Chicago hotel room if he doesn't sign a bill lowering cable rates - and then to release the video anyway when he complies.
During the CMG Satellite Network Inaugural Party, Carver denies a rumor to his guests that after British beef baron Sir Angus Black lost £10,000 in a game of poker to him and refused to pay up, he exacted revenge by releasing stories on Mad Cow Disease. He further claimed there was even less truth to the rumor the French paid him 100 million francs to keep the stories running for another year.
Instigating a War[]
Carver attempts to start a war between the British and Chinese, hoping to wipe out the existing Chinese leadership in Beijing for a friendlier political atmosphere would allow the Carver Media Group Network to secure exclusive broadcasting rights in China for the next century, something that the existing Chinese politicians have refused. To that end, Carver arranges for a stealth boat to be built, thanks to some stealth material smuggled by Chinese general Chang, who intends to take over the Chinese government as part of his deal with Carver.
With the stealth ship, Carver has Richard Stamper, Captain Scott and their crew oversee the sinking of the British warship HMS Devonshire in the South China Sea at the hands of his torpedo-like "SEA-VAC" drill (piloted by Timblin). Carver then has his men steal a cruise missile from the sunken ship, which they have made impossible to be tracked by the British Government (thanks to Henry Gupta using a stolen American encoder to erase the ship's location from the GPS system).
Carver is later seen at the launch party for his new satellite network, where he gets unusually aggressive with Paris. He develops an instant suspicion of James Bond when the secret agent questions him regarding the sunken ship. He has his henchmen capture and attempt to interrogate Bond, but he escapes and cuts off power to Carver's live international broadcast.
When learning it was Bond who caused him and his network international embarrassment, Carver tells Paris to get information from him as to why he was at the party and what he knows. However, when Carver discovers that both Paris and Bond are ex-lovers and that Paris was less than honest with him about her past relationship with Bond, he has Paris killed by assassin Dr. Kaufman, who is skilled in the art of chakra torture, which gives Bond a more personal motivation to complete his mission.
With Chinese People's External Security Force agent Wai Lin by side and reclaiming the encoder for the American, Bond soon learns of a horrible truth: Carver is going to fire the stolen missile at Beijing to wipe out the existing Chinese government and replace them with a government (presumably run by Chang) who will grant him his desired broadcasting rights.
Death[]
Working together, Bond and Lin send messages about Carver's true plot to their governments before tracing down the stealth boat's previous location at Ha Long Bay, where they took down many of Carver's men to their deaths. After Bond kills Captain Scott, Carver holds Bond at gunpoint and delivers a rant about his master plan, which Bond uses to his advantage by secretly activating Carver's SEA-VAC drill. Carver is then disarmed by Bond, who then pushes him into the path of the large drill, informing Carver that he forgot that a crucial rule of the media is to give the people what they want. Carver screams as the drill steadily approaches, and Bond stands by large drill Carver's machinery crush himself Bond would later foil Carver's plan by implanting detonators on the missile to ensure that it'll be set off before it launches itself. Bond and Wai Lin then take cover by going underwater as the missile explodes, killing a pinned Stamper and destroying the stealth ship in the process.
With Carver's plan foiled, M releases a news story stating that Carver has drowned while on board his luxury yacht in the South China Sea, while the authorities believed he committed suicide.
Quotes[]
| “ | Gentlemen, and ladies, hold the presses. This... just in: By curious quirk of fate, we have the perfect story with which to launch our satellite news network tonight. It seems a small crisis is brewing in the South China Seas. I want full newspaper coverage. I want magazine stories. I want books, I want films, I want TV, I want radio, I want us on the air 24 hours a day, this is our moment! And a billion people around this planet will watch it, hear it, and read about it from the Carver Media Group. There's no news... like bad news. | „ |
| ~ Elliot Carver's speech to the public. |
| “ | Delicious. Make sure you clear all the mines and bring the girl to me. (Gupta: Are you sure you want her here?) It's my business, Mr. Gupta. I like an audience. | „ |
| ~ Carver to Gupta after capturing Wai Lin. |
| “ | Oh, how romantic. Do you realize how absurd your position is? (Bond: No more absurd than starting a war for ratings!) Great men have always manipulated the media to save the world. Look at William Randolph Hearst, who told his photographers, "You provide the pictures, I'll provide the war." I've just taken it one step further. | „ |
| ~ Carver justifying his plot to Bond. |
| “ | GET THOSE FIRES OUT!!! Get down and protect the missile!! Oh, and Mr. Stamper, would you please KILL THOSE BASTARDS?!! | „ |
| ~ Carver snapping out after Bond and Lin breached the hull of his stealth ship, leaving it vulnerable to radar. |
| “ | Carver: The missile's fully programmed, it can't be stopped. In a matter of minutes, my plan will succeed. And thanks largely to your efforts, the British Navy will destroy the evidence, and I'll be out of here in a Carver News helicopter covering the event. It's going to be a fantastic show! Bond: I may have some breaking news for you, Elliot... YOU FORGOT THE FIRST RULE OF MASS MEDIA, ELLIOT: GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT!!! Carver: No! No! NOO! NOO!!!! AAAAAAH!!!!! |
„ |
| ~ Carver's last words before his death. |
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Carver is based off of mass media moguls Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch. In fact, Maxwell perished on his yacht, which was ironically the headline for Carver’s demise.
- The "Empire Will Strike Back" headline that Carver brainstorms in Saigon is not only a Star Wars reference, but also to a headline from the April 19th, 1982 issue of Newsweek Magazine, referring to the Falklands War and mobilization of the British Royal Navy.
External Links[]
- Elliot Carver on the Pure Evil Wiki
- Elliot Carver on the James Bond Wiki
