Living Daylights: Who Do You Trust?, The

The Living Daylights is an entry I've always had mixed feelings about. The good part is that Timothy Dalton is a really excellent Bond, for me second only to Connery, and the movie itself is interesting and entertaining enough during its first two thirds. The not so good part is that it contains too many Moore leftover traits, both villains are terribly weak (whose idea was it to play Koskov, a KGB general, as an used car salesman?), and the whole Mujahideen thing in the third act is a bit too Rambo III for my tastes. Oh well... guess they wanted to use what was making the headlines those days. A bit of a curate's egg, but one I still like to revisit from time to time because of Dalton.

And my next revisions are likely to be of this cut. It can only be tweaked to a point, of course, and still needs stronger villains, but I was happy to see most of the Moore-isms gone. I would have gone a bit further and removed Rosika's "distraction tactics" as well, but that's just personal preference. The rest of the changes were more than welcome, and I for once did not miss Felix at all. The fact that it was the worst Felix ever by far definitely helps the cause, of course.

There is, though, one bit that I didn't think worked too well (I almost feel bad pointing one perceived flaw in each and every Lapis' Bond edit - nothing personal, I swear!) and that'd be the ending. Finishing the movie with just Kara playing with no Bond in sight felt strange, almost surreal in fact, as in we are suddenly somewhere indeterminate with no real reference about what's going to become of her. Didn't feel like a Bond ending to me. In my opinion it needed to keep the dressing room scene. It may not be the best classic Bond ending, but it's still a classic Bond ending, and ending on Kara's concert is not. For my tastes, of course.

Editing itself is very well done, though there's a slightly iffy audio transition: at 1:09:58, when we cut from the rooftop chase to Pushkin's "corpse", the music change feels a bit unnatural. Probably not much of a way around it, though, and I don't certainly miss the harem bit. Otherwise the technical aspects are superb.

All in all, another very solid entry in the Lapis Molari Bond series, and another one I'll sooner rewatch than the original. Well done!

Living Daylights was by far my least fave Bond movie, even taking Spectre into account. This edit let’s me swap their rankings for sure. However, it remains a dour entry for me.

Lapis has immeasurably improved this; no question. It flows well, the jokes are not missed, and frankly the cello removal is a gift, however what remains is a dour/sour performance which to me feels wooden too often. My enjoyment score is improved for sure in the original, and if Enjoyment category was Improvement, it would have been another 10…

Great work mind you and defo my go to version…

Thanks for making this!

The movie is dull and that's a fact. All the edits are excelent and help the narrative flow better. Silly stuff is gone and it's more of a spy film than before, like the books. It's better than the original, without a doubt, but the source material isn't just that great to start with.

This fanedit will also replace the original blu-ray in future viewings and 007 marathons.
Lapis Molari did a great job, and it's recommended!

p.s. Could the movie be shortened?

Timothy Dalton is my favourite Bond (in my opinion definitely the best actor to play the character) and The Living Daylights is among the few films in the series that I consider to be objectively great. Perhaps it is no surprise then that I feel that this edit cuts away just a little too much and I find myself missing certain parts, including bits of Q’s lab (Moore-ish as they are); Necros’ original introduction; the conclusion of the snow chase and the full ending scene. I must commend the cutting around the notoriously sub-par appearance of Felix Leiter, something that has always bothered me especially considering his significance in the following film (with a different actor no less), but this leaves me wondering if somebody not familiar with the theatrical version might be confused as to how Bond deduces the scheme without this bit of exposition.

Still, I cannot think of another way around this and maybe it doesn’t matter, the film is still enjoyable and the actual cuts themselves are seamless whether it is the excision of a cringeworthy moment or the removal of an entire scene. It would not take the place of the original for personal viewing, but may work better for introducing somebody new to the story.

Dalton although not quite marmite, is still a Bond that divides the fans. I think he would have a more regarded if he stayed till Goldeneye, but history played out differently. Anyway, I've always thought The Living Daylights was a massive improvement from the Moore films (especially the final few), but yet I also believe the Dalton films in general needed to be cut down quite a bit as they suffer from being too bloated and this is what this edit improves on. Much of the cheesy jokes that seem to have lingered on since the final Moore years are removed to further mark the change that this is a different Bond with a different style and I liked that. It feels as if Dalton is actually the real middle man to the Bronson years, but he shouldn't be simply be regarded as that since he carries off Bond's persona in a much more calculated way. He has the British charm that is neither Moore's early years or Bronson and he has holds that same British humour as a classic Connery.

As for the edit itself, I found that the pacing actually brought out both the narrative suspense and Dalton's Bond. The cuts are seamless and the audio is spot on. I thought the Necros fight scenes were quicker than usual and built the scene up, but I may be wrong. Whitaker's final scenes are definitely sped up. If I was going to watch a Dalton Bond film again then I would simply choose this edit over the original for the pacing in general. I also didn't think you could also make the introduction more of a jump scare than what it is, but you somehow managed it. Well done!