For Your Eyes Only: 007 Cut

A massive improvement!

Working my way through the Bond blu rays in chronological order, I checked for a fan-edit in desperation, hoping that somebody out there had removed most of Bibi and replaced the chronic score with John Barry cues (like the Never Say Never Again edit)...

And Here It Is!! Plus the dreadful opening sequence with Blofeld and the dated Thatcher 'comedy' scene at the end have gone. This is so much better and my go-to version to watch from now on.

Bibi is actually fairly tolerable in much smaller doses. The colour grading helped massively. Even the 2CV chase seems more Bond-like.

Not that it matters, but if I was being really ungrateful and picky:

Sometimes the sound mix of this edit is off, with the music being too quiet or the vocal track levels varying in volume between scenes.

It seemed a little short for a Bond movie.
I personally quite like the edited out banana nose identigraph scene, the bike through the window stunt and the submersible vehicle battle (although the button controls are a bit rubbish).

I'd have also liked to have seen M redubbed by someone like Peter Marinker, to give him a less irritating voice. I don't know why it wasn't done at the time - looping vocal performances is hardly unheard of in these films.

Sheena Easton's face could ideally do with being removed from the opening credits.

I'm so glad this edit didn't choose to replace the original song with the alternate one.

Anyway, only minor gripes. Thanks for saving the film.

This is a much leaner version of For Your Eyes Only. All of the fat is cut. The darker more serious tone it always aspired to is helped by the removal of awkwardly placed comedic moments.

The biggest issue I always had with this Bond movie was the Conti score which feelt cheesy and dated. It really made the film seem cheap and inconsiquential. This version with the Barry music added turns it into a true classic. I loved most of the music choices and they were all a big improvement on the original.

There is a little scene envolving a secondary character that seemed a bit out of place, and a couple of frames that sliped the cut.
These are all small things, and don't detract from the enjoyment and the quality of the fanedit.

It's a tighter and straight to the point movie. Closer to the tone of the books. Without all the cheesyness and absurd gadgetry (they were fun back then, but aged poorly). All the small cuts that made averything more fluid, lean with great pace.
Also the change in the soundtrack makes a difference. Watching a Bond movie and listen to John barry instead of somebody else's music.

Congratulations are in order!

p.s. Another fanedit that replaces the original ;)

Nostromo777 makes a good Bond film better!

The narrative is improved with a tighter plot. The music is remarkably improved by replacing Conti's (badly dated) score for a selection of Barry's 007 scores. Some of the musical cues will be recognizable to Bond fans, which could distract you momentarily. But it's worth it when you compare this edit to the original!

The sound replacement work is such an accomplishment that that alone already merits checking out this edit!

It seems like most people regard The Spy Who Loved Me as Roger Moore's best outing as 007. I disagree. For Your Eyes Only is his best in my opinion, and this edit of it only makes it better. But let me start with the negatives: the cutting seems quite jumpy at times, especially in the very first scenes onboard the ship which sinks. I understand the idea was to tighten almost every single scene in the movie, but it takes some getting used to. Between cuts there would sometimes be a split second of an odd frame. The audio during some dialogue is very low compared to the music in other scenes. And I think the traditional Bond theme may pop up once too often---it is hard to know if these were actually variations of the Bond theme that were just too close to identical for me to tell.
OK, that was all the "bad" stuff. Forget all that, because it barely detracts at all from this great edit of a 007 spy thriller. I would scarcely call many 007 movies spy thrillers, especially the Moore era ones, but this one is. Removing bits of the annoying ice skater girl helped a lot. The music throughout was very cool---using some of the Thunderball music during underwater scenes was perfect. And, indeed, the classic James Bond theme was very welcome during some scenes. I was worried that all the humor would be removed, but what remained was ideal. The Craig era could really learn a lot from the music in this edit. Actually, the Brosnon era could have as well. This cut achieved what the best of the Connery era achieved--when it ended, the music was echoing in your head and you felt like putting on a nice suit and driving really fast and dangerously. It reminded me of that feeling of wanting to be James Bond because he was the coolest guy on earth with his own personal theme song! (Indiana Jones may be the only other character in history with as great a theme song). The narrative and enjoyment level here is perfect. It isn't my "go to" version because the file size is prohibitively humongous so I had to delete immediately after watching, but if not for that, this is the version I prefer. It is the best cut of Roger Moore's best Bond outing. It is easily the most realistic Bond since Goldfinger and until The Living Daylights (and finally again with Casino Royale). This is THE essential Moore era Bond and the ideal (if very slightly flawed) edit of For Your Eyes Only. Highly recommend! (Especially if you have the 18Gb to spare on your hard drive!)