What if FYEO was Timothy Dalton's first Bond movie

Timothy Dalton, who had played Bond in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill, was approached years before his tenure, first being On Her Majesty's Secret Service in which turned down because he felt that at 22 years old, he was too young for the role. He was also offered the role again for Live and Let Die and turned down the role for the same reason and he did not wish to replace Sean Connery. They offered him the gig again for For Your Eyes Only, but turned it down as he did not like the comic approach the series was taking, however the plan with FYEO was that they were going back the series routes of being more serious, so maybe Broccoli didn't fully explain this to Dalton.
Roger Moore really did save the James Bond series, he showed that Bond did have to Sean Connery and to the franchise to adapt a new tenure and a new age and he gave the character a different personality compared to Connery. Moore was known for playing his Bond as more light hearted and tongue and cheek, but FYEO showed that he can play a more human, serious and darker version of the character. However had he ended his tenure with Moonraker, it would still be considered a good tenure, and would had decided to leave citing his age, being in his 50s at the time. He would done three very good ones and only one bad Bond flick being The Man With The Golden Gun.

For Your Eyes Only brought Bond back down to earth, stripped away the gadgets was more serious so had Timothy Dalton began, the film would have one of the best spy thrillers. It would have been an amazing opening to his tenure. Dalton's style would have made it a much better film and the style and toner would have been more darker and more serious taking away any funny quips that Moore would say. The changes would be that Bond's relationship with Bibi would be more intimate than parental and Krisatos could be played by someone closer to Dalton's age than being played by Julian Glover. Since it was the beginning of the 80s, fans would have seen Dalton as the face of Bond.

A more serious version of Octopussy would follow on, still rivaling "Never Say Never Again", known as the Battle of the Bonds. "Octopussy" would solidify Dalton as Bond. Here he would really shine his style would suit it, eliminating any of the Moore-humor, like the clown costume. Also Moneypenny would recast in FYEO and Penelope Smallbone would be out of this universe. Action scenes would be more life-threating for Dalton's Bond especially when going through the jungle. Now a different actress would have been chosen for Octopussy herself, Maud Adams was chosen because he was a great opposite to Roger Moore's certain age (he was 55 at the time), and both worked well together, so someone Dalton's junior would be chosen for the role.

Next is A View to a Kill, this one would be very different, Dalton would be involved in all the stunts instead of the stunt men doing the work, I would loved to see him go toe-to-toe with both Christopher Walken and Grace Jones, there would a more realistic darkness of the Dalton era, also Stacey Sutton would be played by a different actress than Tanya Roberts (R.I.P.) (say Fiona Fullerton, Michelle Pfeiffer or Sharon Stone or Bo Derek), also they could have gotten Anya from the Spy Who Loved Me back instead of Pola Ivanova. This would have established continuity connecting Dalton's Bond to Moore's Bond/ back to recasting, I believe Sir. Godfrey (Patrick McNee) would be played by a younger actor close to Dalton's age. The love scenes would have been less embarrassing. AVTAK with Dalton would be much better with his tone and style.

The Living Daylights would have been a bigger success and audiences would be happy with Dalton as Bond. Licence to Kill (a favourite of mine) would be a crowning acheivement in the franchise and audiences would want Dalton's Bond to go rogue and hunt down the villain as a part of revenge. The only reason LTK wasn't sitting well with audiences was because it was pushing itself to far to quickly.

After LTK, this scenario could go down in two ways, Dalton gets to do a sixth movie, or he ends it there allowing Pierce Brosnan to take over the role.