10 James Bond Villains With The Most Sinister Plans

We see Elliot Carver's media manipulation machine in efficient effect when he rounds up his "golden retrievers" for a no news like bad news briefing: releasing new software full of bugs so that consumers will have to upgrade for years, and humiliating the US President. Carver would've had lots of fun during Donald Trump's presidency, that's for sure.

Rupert Murdoch has his limits (sort of). Pff, our happy tapping Elliot grins mercilessly in the face of such whimsical notions.

He assembles a crack team: many minions aboard a stealth ship equipped with giant savage sea drill; a techno terrorist with GPS encoder; and a standard issue henchman - a chakra torture-loving brute called Mr (how quaint) Stamper.

Armed with the above, Carver orchestrates an international crisis between the British and Chinese by using the GPS encoder to set the HMS Devonshire unwittingly off course into Chinese waters. They warn the British, who rightly state they're in international waters. The sea drill is then chillingly launched in the guise of a MiG torpedo to sink the Devonshire; with an actual missile fired at one of the MiGs from the stealth ship as though the British had done it.

Soon after, divers retrieve a missile from the sunken Devonshire that formulates Carver's evil endgame: using it to wipe out China's top brass in Beijing apart from his buddy General Chang, who'll take over and with whom he's secured exclusive broadcasting rights in the country for the next 100 years - perfectly complementing and enhancing Carver's diabolical divisions of TV, news, and magazines. Delicious.

It's, quite frankly, amazing he had time to develop an edifice complex.