For Your Eyes Only: Ultimate Edition (1981)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary Credits Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Bond In Greece And Cortina Synopsis-Neptune Journey Scene Synopsis-John Glen's Intro - Death Of Locque Scene Synopsis-John Glen's Intro- Death Of Locque Multi-Angle Deleted Scenes-Joining Forces, Hockey 007 Style Featurette-Making Of-Death Of Locque - Expanded Angles Featurette-007, The Women, Allies, Villians,Mission Cobat Manual Featurette-Q Branch, Exotic Locations Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Inside Your Eyes Only Storyboards-Animated Sequences-Snowmobile Chase and Underwater Music Video-Sheena Easton Theatrical Trailer-Archive TV Spots-Broadcasts Radio Spots-Communications
Rating
Year Of Production	1981
Running Time	122:36
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (62:01) Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Glen
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Roger Moore Carole Bouquet Topol Lynn-Holly Johnson Julian Glover Cassandra Harris Jill Bennett Michael Gothard John Wyman Jack Hedley Lois Maxwell Desmond Llewelyn Geoffrey Keen
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Bill Conti

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Dutch Swedish Finnish Norwegian Danish Greek Hindi English Text Commentary Dutch Text Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The third last Roger Moore era James Bond film, For Your Eyes Only is an underrated classic, and certainly Moore’s finest. After the descent of the Bond franchise into the tongue-in-check self-mockery that was Live And Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun and Moonraker, director John Glen brought us a fine film that attempted to bring the show back to its roots, while updating the story for a more serious espionage angle that better reflected the politics of the era and the various other “realistic” spy-thrillers released at that time.

    The plot of For Your Eyes Only is reasonably complex for a Bond movie. It opens with the sinking of a disguised British spy ship off the coast of Greece, and then takes Bond on the trail of a hired assassin in Spain, to Cortina for the middle of the Winter Olympics, down to the coast of Albania, and then back to the waters off the coast of Greece in the hunt for a stolen nuclear submarine locator that the Russians are keen to get their hands on.

    Paired up with one of the most stunning Bond women, Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock, this film also includes some of the best underwater fighting scenes of its time, far superior to those of Thunderball, including a battle between mini-submarines that was not to be rivalled until James Cameron’s underwater epic The Abyss. The story also has a far less satirical tone than its predecessors, and a more likeable Bond who treats his women with a modicum more respect than the Connery incarnation did. More importantly, Ms Havelock is far from the defenceless, screaming, incompetent eye-candy that generally populate Bond films, and as such took the series in a more interesting direction, with several later Bond movies featuring tough female counterparts (Licence To Kill, Tomorrow Never Dies).

    As a semi-serious Bond venture, this is one of my favourites, and great viewing even twenty-five years later. Well worth it.

Video

    Presented in 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced, mastered from a new high definition transfer from the source material, this is an excellent image, and the best we are likely to ever see this film until we get a proper HD transfer in one of the new formats. Upscaled to 1080i at 50Hz, this is truly stunning.

    The major difference is in the colour and light correction done by Lowry – the difference really is phenomenal. Much like the remastering done for the original Star Wars trilogy, this really does look like it was made yesterday, and the use of colour and shadow in this fashion really does enhance the viewing experience.

    Shadow detail is far more pronounced and less murky than it was for the original R4 release and the image is also sharper and more defined, with far more background detail than before.

    Film-to-video transfer artefacts are virtually non-existent, and I had to really scrutinise the picture before I was able to detect the faintest of background aliasing. Rare as it was, you can just see it in a couple of spots, mostly on metal grilles that travel at an angle to the camera. Nearly all dirt has been removed.

    There are subtitles available in a raft of options as enumerated above, including English and English for the Hearing Impaired. I watched the subtitles in English for the Hearing Impaired. They are quite accurate.

    The dual layer pause is at 62:01. It occurs during a scene change and is a little jarring, but not appalling.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio is available in English 5.1 DTS (768Kb/s), as well as English in Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s).

    The Dolby Digital track is acceptable. The DTS track is far superior.

    Dialogue is all but faultless, and any minor sync issues are almost certainly source faults that were not corrected in post-production ADR. Things like inflections and other voice-related sound effects (wheezing, sighing, heavy breathing) are also suddenly audible, like in the classic chase up the side of the Albanian coast. Brilliant.

    Surrounds are aggressive, and although the original remasters for this series added a whole new audio dimension, these remasters improve on that again. True theatre quality audio.

    The subwoofer is heavily utilised for a wide variety of sound effects.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, and most have a 2.0 Dolby Surround audio track. Some of the submenus are static and silent. All menus are uniformly clear and well presented.

Disc 1

Audio Commentary – John Glen (Director) and Actors

    Presented 2.0 Dolby Surround, this is a pretty good commentary, and is in many respects a re-edit of the commentary from the original R1 DVD release and other retrospective documentary features from that release. Narrated like a documentary, I think this is a far better format for audio commentaries than the usual of letting the person drone on and on with no cues in the background.

Audio Commentary – Michael G. Wilson and Crew

    Presented 2.0 Dolby Surround, this is an interesting technical commentary.

Audio Commentary – Roger Moore

    Presented 2.0 Dolby Surround, Moore is definitely an amusing character. Well worth some time.

Scene Selections

    Presented 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, 2.0 Dolby Surround, each chapter has about a 10 second motion segment to choose from.

DVD Credits

Disc 2

Declassified: MI6 Vault

    Presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced (often with a 1.33:1 inset, so you get black bars at the sides), and 2.0 Dolby Digital Surround audio, this is a series of documentaries about the show:

• Bond in Greece (5:55)
• Bond In Cortina (4:16)
• Neptune’s Journey (3:31)
• John Glen Intro: Death Of Locque (1:05)
• Death Of Locque: Multi Angle (0:40)
• Deleted Scene: Joining Forces (1:00)
• Deleted Scene: Kockey 007 Style (1:57)
• Expanded Angles: Death Of Locque (0:40)

007 Mission Control

    Presented in 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced, and 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround audio, this contains a series of snippets from the movie on each of the following topics:

• 007
• Women
• Allies
• Villains
• Mission Combat Manual
• Q Branch
• Exotic Locations

Mission Dossier

    Presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, non-16x9 enhanced (often with a 2.35:1 inset, so you get black bars at the top and bottom), and 2.0 Dolby Digital Surround audio, this submenu contains the following:

• Featurette: Inside For Your Eyes Only (28:31)
• Animated Storyboard Sequence - Snowmobile Chase (1:10)
• Animated Storyboard Sequence - Underwater (1:41)
• Sheena Easton Music Video (2:37)

Ministry Of Propaganda

    Presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, 2.0 Dolby Digital Surround audio, this is a collection of the marketing material for the movie:

• Theatrical Archive (3:32)
• TV Broadcasts - containing 2 TV trailers and a teaser trailer
• Radio Communication (1:08)

Image Database

    Presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced with the image inset within, these are a series of stills.

    We are told that these new Ultimate Editions will be released with identical content all over the world. The original R1 and R4 releases contained the same special features as are now in the menus for “Mission Dossier”, “Ministry of Propaganda” and “Image Database”. However, whereas the original R1 release had a fantastic picture (which still holds up, although the colour correction is an improvement) the original R4 release was marred by horrible aliasing and moire. The new Ultimate Edition corrects those faults.

    For Your Eyes Only is a quality serious Bond film, setting his reign as Bond up for a fine close. I have fond memories of this film, so I may be somewhat biased, but it is a quality show.

    This DVD transfer is excellent, and much better than the earlier releases.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall