Oh, I never saw that in any of the books. In fact, I think Thrawn had a facility that was cloning Imperial Storm Troopers and that was something like 30 years afterwards. Thanks for the clarification, But I also believe this was a politically correct decision, or a way to break out of the clone mold for the future movies.

Sounds like I'm going to have to get it. It sounds very similar to the premises of the original canon, where Leia literally spent her entire life trying to put the Old Republic back together again both militarily and economically.

You're mixing Storm Troopers and Clone Troopers. The Clone facilities were shut down at the end of the Clone Wars just after they offed all the Jedi in Episode III. Storm Troopers were just normal indoctrinated schmoes taken from their families and put through intense training.

The one thing I will say is that at least this time they were able to hit things (Chewbacca). One of the running jokes of past episodes is just how bad of shots they supposedly are despite the fact that Obi Wan Kenobi sees the slaughtered Jawa sandcrawler on Tattooine and points out the "precision" of the blast marks as the hallmarks of Imperial troops.

It appears that my diminished hearing diminishes all things loud in theaters.
But missing parts of dialog is very frustrating.

Not sure how you give a D to the plot since the story was essentially episode 4 with a touch of episode 5 told over again with new characters in familiar roles.

I was unimpressed with this film, I saw it today with my son. It was nothing more than a rehash of the first Star Wars movie with new faces in familiar roles going through the paces we've seen in the 4th (SW), 5th(ROJ), and 6th (ESB) installments. On a scale from 1-10, I'd rate it 7.

Oh, my issue is usually they are so loud it's painful. I was a submarine sonar guy so they checked our hearing every year for 20 years, luckily I never had any loss over the time. I agree with the subtitles, sometimes that is almost better.

I remembered hearing something like that but it seemed to wiz by, it seemed sort of confusing, as to why they needed to use the number thing then, would they tell kids to forget their names? Seemed kinda lame...

I thought they mentioned that the current batch of Storm Troopers were taken from their families as young children and raised to be troops.

Thanks, but the old blind couple who closely live next door to me may not like that.
I catch up on current movies with Netflix and try to make sure the DVDs have subtitles.
Sometimes I slip up and I can twice recall a false claim of having English subtitles.
Way before I developed hearing problems, I got used to subtitles during my 20s for watching samurai classics on PBS.

Get some of these. Made in the U.S.A.
http://www.magnepan.com/
Voices are so real you will think they are in the room with you.

The last movie I saw in a theater was Skyfall and that was a couple of years after I stopped seeing flicks in theaters..
It's not the action sounds I had a problem with.
It was the dialog.
I kept missing bits of spoken sentences.

Ren and his master are NOT Sith. They are dark force users for sure, but the Sith were a specific order with specific rules and focus on strength. These guys (Knights of Ren) are much weaker overall, and wouldn't excel in combat because unlike Sith who draw upon emotion for combat, Ren's master (Snoke) condemns emotion and is teaching him to rid himself of it. (more like Jedi in this regard). This, and the fact that he's obviously at a "Padawan" type level in his training, explain why she could take him down.

Absolutely.
Get a loyal fan base. you can go on a show like 20/20 or 60 minutes after you're a success and let the interviewer draw you out about "hidden" meanings.

Good points. Lots of room to play there, what about fuel use/global warming impacts on business? How that gets abused for every pet idea on the planet and politician. How about an independent trucker family with just a couple trucks? Lots of fresh ways to incorporate ideas. But you are spot on in the entertaining as well as engrossing, you actually have to get a relationship with the viewers that makes them have a stake in it, whether it is to see what happens or to make them feel it is something they can relate to.

You have to remember that #7 is the start of a new series, and as such had to establish new characters and story lines while being a thrilling show. I think it succeeded in that and ended in just the right place in order to continue. It carries lots of baggage, but I think they dealt well with it.

The most important thing about a movie is that it must be entertaining. Star Wars films are certainly that. And that brings us to Atlas Shrugged, the film. I really liked it, but then, I am an Objectivist. Even though, the three films didn't nearly cover everything in the book, it still was ponderous when it came right down to it and lacked adventure. If our friends are successful in creating a TV series, I would take all kinds of liberties with the book. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't even call it it "Atlas Shrugged." How about just, "Atlas?" Base the stories on Objectivist principles, but update it. Instead of a train corp. make it a large overland trucking firm, with troubles with the union, the government regulators and a rival trying to take over the company with aid from a corrupt government. Check out "The Good Wife" which makes the dry subject of law exciting. I'm just sayin'.

A LOT of movies were better. A whole lot. But Strugatsky is pretty accurate, JJ seems bent on spectacle, not story. SW is spectacle, but seemed like for all the "work" that went into it, someone got cheated.

Nope, it's not. But it is just fun shoot em up. Just don't look too close.

I wouldn't say too far off the mark, a lot of "you need to have seen all the others to know what is going on here" was needed. Even then, a lot of scenes were "How did they get that?" quality. The evil guys were of course, easy to swap, but they fell down on a basic: to be politically correct, they cast a black man as a storm trooper, when the Storm Troopers were all clones of Bobba Fetts dad (Jango?). They alluded to something with a couple lines about "our storm troopers are the equal of" but then gave Finn no name just a number, going back to the clone theory. Would have been a lot cleaner if they had set something in motion somewhere in the beginning to explain why.

Dino, it was so loud in our theater you did not need any hearing, it was felt. An issue I have with almost all movies, they are almost painful when things blow up. The 3D was really good, first one I ever tried. A couple scenes came out really awesome with it.

The gap between all the many books and the movie was an issue only because Disney takes a whole universe, that had built it's story and history based on Lucas approval, and tossed it in the dumpster much as the Trek JJ verse did. They had some excellent story lines from existing material, and instead opted for what looked like a 3 movie mashup. It got so predictable my engineer and I watched it and started telling each other what must be coming up soon (a trench scene, a large bearded guy blowing up in a bomber ( we decided he was the brother of the guy who did the same thing in the first movie), and of course, a Cantina scene. Just from what they did, they could have easily stepped into the Legacy of the Force series, where Han and Leia had 3 children (one of whom becomes a sith lord, and one of whom offs him). Add in the luke backstory and it would have made just as good a set of movies, and toss in the bad guys invading from another galaxy. Lots of stuff to play with. I am also kinda confused why Star Trek has made such a huge Fan film base, leading into ST Axanar (and the outstanding 20 minute Prelude to Axanar) and Pacific201 and there is a total lack of SW efforts. Must be something to do with the effects needed or something.
As far as the rest of the fleet, there is some backstory stuff floating around, supposedly the "Resistance" is an unsanctioned group, the real government had some kind of peace treaty with the 1st Order, and was the system they vaporized in the process. So the fleet apparently had gone the way of most military when peace breaks out. Of course that also means the X wings were pretty long in the tooth by then, so they should have again dipped in the novel bag and pulled out the Jedi versions (black and supped up) to help even things up. I also agree you are dead on right with the Force issue, there is so much that the Jedi and Sith supposedly do with the Force in combat, Kylo Ren was almost painful to watch, looking like a kid who just found a gun and is gone off killing everyone. Rey you expect to be the novice, as she has no idea what to do with the Force, thus leading us into next movie, which will probably be another close copy of Empire. Luke teaches Rey to use the Force, Rey runs off to help momma who she feels is in danger or something, Luke lies down to die peacefully, big station where Kylo Ren does bad things in a sneaky way. Hopefully Finn does not get flash frozen...

Thank You, Dr. Hudgins! -- j
.

I saw it. Believe Star Wars is more fairy tale than science fiction. Frankly I just don't understand the fascination with it.
There just is not much science in this science fiction.

I have yet to see the movie but from what I've read and heard... it's much like our world today, having similar struggles...should we re-institute our Constitution in stronger terms, tweek it a bit , make it clearer for those stupid so that it can never again be misunderstood or confounded or start from scratch; all while we fight the good fight.

Glad to hear though, they didn't change the characters into a liberal utopia...that would have killed the whole thing.

Maybe, like so many great works...the ending, it's resolution, is up to us and worthy of yet another sequel.