Living Daylights: Death to Spies, The

The “Death To Spies” edit is a very enjoyable viewing experience. It drags “The Living Daylights” (almost) right out of the lingering Roger Moore era mindset and makes it a more unapologetically Timothy Dalton Bond movie. Alterations are well chosen and well executed.

Here’s a few thoughts I recall after watching…

Cutting Bond landing on the yacht in the pre-titles does jar a little, not because it isn’t well done, but because it means that throughout his whole introductory sequence, the new Bond never speaks. It felt odd to be into the title song and he hasn’t said a word. [Maybe Bond casually remarking “007 here, report in one hour” might fit over the ship and parachute shots that now end the scene? “Bond, James Bond” is still lost, but at least he would introduce himself in some way.]

Messing with the Binder titles must be a slippery slope, as IMO they are often so goofy where do you stop?! But changes are well done on this edit, although personally I always liked the final shot of girl in champagne glass, even if it does wobble a bit!

Lots of silliness is removed from the movie, and to good effect. Perhaps this could have gone even further? Lasering the police car is removed, that is certainly a Roger Moore gag, but IMO cutting a circle in the ice and the police car sinking should be removed too, this is also a pretty silly gag. The scene could go from the tyre shredding straight to Bond activating outrigger and spikes.

Overall, edits are beautifully done, and the movie is an easy watch. I could nitpick a couple of points, I suppose.
There is a slight remnant on the soundtrack of Kamran’s arrival at the concert. This was presumably not possible to work around. However, the end credits song fades out a couple of seconds early and leaves an unresolved feel, this is more of a problem IMO. Maybe it’s because I listen to the soundtrack albums often, but the loss of the very end of the track really bugged me. I could knock a star off for that alone… but I won’t! :-)

A highly recommended edit, any fan of Dalton’s Bond will find this well worth their time.

An IMPROVEMENT...definitely....

There is no question that the technical aspect of this edit are spot on...and that this would be my GOTO version if I ever feel i must watch a Dalton 007 escapade again.

The poor humour is reomved, the pacing is better and the feel overall is a vast imrovement. But what this edit (and others) cannot do for me, is alter the dour, sour, lack of power performance of Mr Dalton.

I find this 007 is charmless, without a glib attitude and frankly ...wooden. It feels like a chair is throw into the room when ever 007 appears on the screen.

The theatrical version would have a 6 score from me, and narrative8, so I have upgraded that...the improvemnt is there for all to see, however, short of using DEEPFAKE and vocal AI to alter the principal protagonist, for me the two TD entries in the 007 franchise are just a miscasting of biblical proportions.

The huge number of trims, micro edits and score replacements are all top notch...and though in a few places Kame's score can be detected when it has been replaced, I have not marked this down.

If you are a TD fan, then HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you are a 007 fan, this is a great improvement...without question.

Alas...for this viewer though...BRAVO, but I won't be revisiting.

This edit was just superb!!!!!! In my opinion it has a good feel to it!! I would recommend it to anyone who loves Bond films especially Timothy Dalton one!!!!!

While TLD was already a good Bond movie, this fan edit successfully improves by trimming all the Roger Moore-ish gags that didn't fit with Dalton's tone and the excellent editing done in the title sequence. The scores have thankfully been improved an example is the Hercules Take-Off scene which its audio mixing is more noticeable unlike before. I would love to see what the fan editor would bring to the table if he gets around doing one for Licence To Kill.

TLD has always been my favorite Bond movie ever since I first saw it in the cinema (yes I'm old), but I was totally open for a fresh and modern take. And I wasn't disappointed. Fan-edit 'Death to Spies' made me aware for the first time how much redundant material there actually is in this movie. Felix Leiter didn't really have any significant part to play, and burning a car off it's wheels with a laser was much too Moore-ish, to name but a few examples.
OlivusPrime did an excellent job on this edit, not only with his choices, but also the execution - it was almost flawless. The new elements at the beginning and end of the main title actually blew me away - very professional and totally convincing. Just two minor points: the edit of Pushkin's 'resurrection' was maybe less than perfect, but with the available material it was probably not possible to do it better. And the romance in the ferris wheel started a bit too quick for my taste. But these are minor quibbles in a new and fresh take that I thoroughly enjoyed, and I actually prefer it now to the original - which is probably the highest compliment a fan-editor can get.