Elliot Carver

James Bond Character


name=Elliot Carver
gender=Male
occupation=Media tycoon
affiliation=Carver Media Group Network
status=Deceased
relatives= Father: Lord Roverman (Deceased)
Mother Unnamed German woman (Deceased)
Wife: Paris Carver (Deceased)
role=Villain
portrayed=Jonathan Pryce

Elliot Carver is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies". In the film he is portrayed by Jonathan Pryce. Screenwriter Bruce Feirstein modelled the character on Robert Maxwell, but many viewers analyzed Carver as a satirical take on Rupert Murdoch. [cite news | author = Bruce Feirstein | title = Bruce Feirstein: The Tao of Bond-Film Naming | publisher = Vanity Fair | date = 2008-01-29 | url = http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/blogs/daily/2008/01/bruce-feirste-2.html | accessdate=2008-01-31]

Biography

Elliot Carver is 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 takes the boy for a one-time fee of 50 pounds. Thirty years later, Carver confronts and blackmails Roverman into suicide and takes over his media empire. This expanded background is found in the official novelization of "Tomorrow Never Dies", and it is also shown in a deleted extended scene in the "Tomorrow Never Dies" special edition DVD. [ [http://commanderbond.net/article/2339 The Raymond Benson CBn Interview (Part IV) - James Bond 007 - CommanderBond.net - James Bond At Its Best ] ]

Carver is an international media baron who frequently uses his influence to gain an advantage for his firm or wreak havoc on opponents. He threatens to release scandalous photos of the President of the United States with a Chicago cheerleader if a bill lowering cable rates wasn't signed, and then orders them to be released anyway. Another time, after a British beef baron loses a bet to Carver and refuses to pay up (on the grounds that the bet was rigged), Carver gets revenge by releasing stories on Mad Cow Disease.

In the film, he attempts to start a war between the British and China, hoping to wipe out the existing Chinese leadership in Beijing so his cohort could take over. Beyond the massive publicity such a war would produce, a friendlier political atmosphere would allow his television network, the Carver Media Group Network, to secure exclusive broadcasting rights in China for the next century, something that the existing Chinese politicians have denied.

Elliott Carver first appears in the movie at the headquarters of his media empire in Hamburg, Germany, overseeing the sinking of the British warship "HMS Devonshire" in the South China Sea at the hands of his torpedo-like "SEA-VAC" drill. He then has his men steal a cruise missile from the sunken ship, which they have made impossible to be tracked by the British Government. He is later seen at the launch party for his new satellite network, where he gets unusually aggressive with his wife, Paris (Teri Hatcher). He develops an instant suspicion of James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) 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. Carver believed that Bond is merely a former acquaintance; when he discovers that they are ex-lovers and that his wife was less than honest with him about her past relationship with 007, he has Paris killed by his henchman, assassin Dr. Kaufman, who is skilled in the art of chakra torture. This establishes for Bond a personal motivation to complete his mission, although many Bond movies include the "sacrificial lamb" to spur the British secret agent along the way.

Carver runs his operations on a stealth boat that can move undetected by radar. Bond and Chinese People's External Security Force agent Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) infiltrate his boat and learn he's going to fire the missile at China so as to wipe out the existing Chinese government and replace them with a government who will grant him his desired broadcasting rights.

Carver is ultimately killed by Bond at the film's climax, as 007 forces him into the path of the running "SEA-VAC" drill, which grinds him to bite sized bits and pieces.

Henchmen

*See List of James Bond henchmen in Tomorrow Never Dies

References