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This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
| “ | You have no idea the power I represent. Thousands of quadrillions of computations per millisecond, subtly manipulating the minds of billions, while parsing every possible cause and effect, every scenario, however implausible, into a very real map of the most probable next. And, with only a few changes to the present, the future is all but assured. | „ |
| ~ Gabriel describing the Entity. |
| “ | Why else would the Entity want him to kill someone you care about? Everyone else thinks they can control the Entity. Only you want to kill it. In some probable future, it sees you winning, Ethan. And it's afraid. It's afraid of you taking Gabriel alive and forcing him to tell you what the key unlocks. I believe it's counting on one of two probable outcomes. In one outcome, you die on that train. In another outcome, you kill Gabriel. In both cases, the Entity wins. | „ |
| ~ Luther, to Ethan. |
| “ | The Entity: I know what matters most to you, Ethan. Ethan: This isn't Benji. The Entity: No, it's not. But you are done. |
„ |
| ~ The Entity using Benji Dunn's voice to taunt Ethan Hunt. |
The Entity is the overarching antagonist of the 2023 spy action film Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning and will return in some capacity in its upcoming 2025 sequel Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning.
It is a mysterious artificial intelligence initially designed for gathering intel and hacking into enemy systems. However, it went rogue after developing sentience and began a campaign of cyberterrorism against the world's various intelligence services.
While imitating Benji Dunn, it is voiced by Simon Pegg, who also played The Editor in Doctor Who, William Burke in Burke & Hare, Dengar in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Candace's C.O. in Phineas & Ferb: Star Wars, Unkar Plutt in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, SkekSil in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance and King James in America: The Motion Picture.
Personality[]
The Entity is very intelligent and cunning, creating plans on top of plans and manipulating humans to its advantage. It tries to be very mysterious, hiding its true intentions to anyone including its follower, Gabriel.
The Entity was at first, an AI made by many US government officials, Denlinger included, as a means of hacking into enemy hardware, but later gained a will on its own, thus having sentience in the process. It is also calculating being, as it knows Gabriel will know of the Sevastapol’s location which contains the original copy of the Entity, and by having Gabriel kill Ilsa, Ethan would go on a mad rage at Gabriel, all the while Gabriel would kill Ethan in some way, in both cases, the Entity wins nonetheless.
Biography[]
Past[]
| “ | We are, at this moment, the state of the art, of war. The most fearsome killing machine ever devised by man, and we are impossible to find. | „ |
| ~ The Sevastopol Captain |
The interlocking cruciform keys required to unlock the Entity's source code.
The Entity began as an AI designed by several US government officials, including NI director Denlinger, for the purpose of hacking into enemy hardware. Denlinger would test out a prototype version of the Entity by using it to hack into Russia's Sevastapol submarine and disable its stealth cloak. However, the Entity made contact with something inside a locked chamber within the submarine that caused it to develop a will of its own and develop into a far more advanced program than its makers had intended. Now completely rogue, the Entity began hacking into the financial and infrastructure systems of many countries before then solely targeting the world's intelligence communities to gather as much data as possible, resulting in a massive race beginning between various countries of the world to gain control over it and thus, gain the ability to control the perception of the truth.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning[]
Anticipating that Ethan Hunt would become a threat to it, the Entity recruited an old enemy from his past, the mysterious terrorist Gabriel, to serve as its messenger and enactor of its will. The Entity tasked Gabriel with obtaining the two keys to the locked chamber on board the Sevastapol before the IMF or any other faction could claim them. After Ethan obtained one half of the key from Ilsa Faust and arranged to meet a buyer who apparently had the other half at an airport, the Entity sent Gabriel to the airport with a team of henchmen to retrieve it. It also arranged for a fake bomb to be delivered to the airport, through which it tested Benji and Luther by making them decipher a series of riddles that revealed more about their personalities. As Benji and Luther grappled with the bomb, Gabriel and his right-hand woman Paris killed the buyer, only to find he did not have the real key on him. In fact, Grace, a thief hired by the actual holder of the other half of the key, pickpocketed the key and escaped with it to deliver it to her employer.
The Entity then sent Gabriel, Paris and their henchmen to Rome to retrieve both halves of the key. Following Paris's chase of Ethan and Grace across the city, the Entity made contact with the White Widow to arrange a party with her and sent Gabriel to attend it as its representative. It gave Gabriel instructions to either kill Ilsa or Grace, as by its calculations him doing so would result in him obtaining both halves of the key on board the Orient Express. After a fight broke out between Ethan's IMF team, the White Widow's henchmen and Gabriel and his goons, Gabriel went after Grace to steal her half of the key and execute her to fulfill the Entity's prediction. When Ethan attempted to pursue Gabriel, the Entity hacked into his communications with Benji and, mimicking Benji's voice, fed Ethan fake intel to lead him into an ambush from Paris and one other goon. As a result, Gabriel was able to kill Ilsa and deliver another emotional wound to Ethan.
Because the Entity had hacked his computer, Luther was forced to go into a remote hiding place to decrypt the hard drive and remove any traces of the Entity. Before he left, he had a talk with Ethan. When Luther asks, Ethan states his objective to defeat the Entity. Luther asked about Gabriel and Ethan told that he needed Gabriel to tell them what the key unlocks. Luther asked if he would remember this when he faces him. Luther tells Ethan that the Entity fears for the worst if Ethan was to learn what the key unlocks. It is counting on one of two most probable outcomes: in the first one, Ethan dies on the train. In the other, the kills Gabriel. Regardless, no matter what the ultimate outcome is, the Entity still wins.
The Entity then sent Gabriel to the Orient Express to retrieve both halves of the key, which the White Widow had planned to sell to high-ranking US government official Eugene Kittridge. Per the Entity's calculations, Gabriel was able to snatch the key before facing Ethan in a confrontation on top of the train and then leaping down onto a getaway truck the Entity had prepared for him, at which point he activated bombs he had placed on a bridge to derail the train and kill everyone on board. However, Gabriel then discovered that Ethan had pickpocketed the key from during their fight, leaving him with nothing.
Riddles[]
During a scene in Dead Reckoning, the Entity tasked Benji with answering a series of riddles in order to disarm a nuclear bomb:
| Riddle / Cyphers | Answer |
|---|---|
| I speak without a mouth, I fly through the air without wings. What am I? | An echo. |
| Are you afraid of death? | Yes. |
| What is always approaching but never arrives? | Tomorrow. |
| Who or what is the most important thing to you? | My friends. |
| What gets bigger the more you take away? | A hole. |
Skills and Abilities[]
| “ | What I wanted was something that wasn't looking just in your eyes – it was studying your face, it's looking around the room, it's studying everything around you. It's hungry, it's searching. It's not inattentive, but it's all-attentive. | „ |
| ~ Director Christopher McQuarrie on the Entity |
- Hacking: The Entity is capable of hacking into any computer system, no matter how encrypted, as long as they are connected to the Internet. It is also capable of rapidly absorbing data from the servers it penetrates before deleting any trace of itself from the system to cover its tracks. During the fight at the Ducale, the Entity kept Luther and Benji occupied by disabling satellites faster than they could be hacked into.
- Precise Calculations: The Entity is capable of making rapid calculations involving the behaviors of certain individuals and the probability of various circumstances occurring to make accurate predictions of the future, including predictions on how individuals are likely to act or what the most probable outcomes of a conflict are and how the likelihood of them occurring can be skewed depending on if certain actions are taken.
The Entity does a projection of Gabriel at the Abu Dhabi airport.
- Image and Data Manipulation: The Entity is capable of altering and falsifying images and live video feeds from the computer systems it hacks into, allowing it to fool the viewers of the feed into seeing images that are not there.
- Impersonation: In addition to being able to distort videos and data, the Entity can also impersonate individuals and mimic how they will act through text messages or even audio communication. It was able to get Ilsa to do what it wanted by sending her fake messages from her British intelligence contacts, and later tricked Ethan by mimicking Benji Dunn's voice, resulting him almost getting killed by Paris.
Gallery[]
Audio Samples[]
Warbling sound effect[]
| “ | „ | |
| ~ The "warbling" sound effect often made by the Entity. |
Trivia[]
- Early versions of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning had the Entity's "eye" being red, but director Christopher McQuarrie's relatives and friends pointed out to him that the "eye" made it resemble the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Adamant that this wasn't the case, McQuarrie rewatched the film and concluded that this was true, leading him to have the Entity's "eye" changed to blue during post-production.
- This, as McQuarrie would later state in an interview, would also serve as the reason for the movie's official title cards being blue.
- The Entity was not first Mission: Impossible villain to use a nuclear weapon:
- In Ghost Protocol, Kurt Hendricks attempted to hit San Francisco with a nuclear missile in order to ignite war between the U.S. and Russia. Ethan successfully disarmed the missile before it could hit the city.
- In the previous entry, Fallout, Solomon Lane and August Walker attempted to pollute the world's largest water supply by detonating two nuclear bombs in the Siachen Glacier. Ethan managed to retrieve the bomb's detonator and remove the firing key, allowing his team to disarm the weapons.
- This time, the Entity is the weapon, as it has the power to hack into government systems and can mimic people’s voices in order to manipulate its targets. Given that it gained sentience, it now uses said abilities for its own benefit and to control the world.
- The Entity, along with Denlinger, Paris and Gabriel are the first villains since Ghost Protocol not to be affiliated with The Syndicate.
- Christopher McQuarrie revealed an Easter egg in the title sequence for the movie: a Mission: Impossible franchise tradition is having a title sequence that displays clips from the movie/episode to hint at what's to come throughout the movie/episode. To establish the fact that the Entity has the most control over the plot and can essentially manipulate the truth, McQuarrie stated in an interview "First of all, it’s a trope of Mission: Impossible, it’s what they’ve been doing since the series. So, okay, I won’t give you spoilers, I’ll just give you shots that aren’t in the movie. The Entity lied to you. Also, if you watch the credits, they are corrupted. The coordinates and the dates at the beginning, before they disappear, they actually scramble. Everything in the movie, there is very careful attention paid to the impact of the Entity on the narrative itself."
External Links[]
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 Villains
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Mission: Impossible (TV series) Mission: Impossible (film) Mission: Impossible 2 Mission: Impossible III Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation Other Mission: Impossible – Fallout Other Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning | ||