-many similarities between Star Wars IV and episode VII. Han Salo, Leia, and Luke Skywalker go to the Death Star to destroy it. The Resistance send their X-wing fighter pilots to take out the Death Star in episode IV. Then you have Han Solo, Fin, and Ren there to take out the weapon on the planet. Even the Han Solo and Kyo Rey scene on the bridge is very similar to Obi Wan Kenobi meeting Darth Vader.

I agree completely, the first half hour or so is the exact same as the first half of 4 but with different nouns. Then there's a whole bunch of 4/5/6 mashed together with some touches from 1/2/3. I hate how they seem to have randomly tweaked everything slightly for seemingly no reason (fancy looking new droids and ships only shortly after the lower tech times of 6? The "Resistance" and "New Order" instead of the Rebel Alliance and Empire?). 20 minutes in I was bored as hell and as soon as I saw Death Star 3.0 I just wanted it to end. I could go through every part of it and point out how it's all reused stuff but since it's 2 hours of old stories and maybe 15 minutes of vaguely new stuff I won't bother.

All together it feels like a new company got the rights to an old series and smashed all of them into one movie and changed a few minor details to make it their own, which is exactly what happened but it definitely shouldn't have felt that way since Lucas already wrote a fucking story for it and it's supposed to be a sequel and not a remake/reboot.

The two things I did like: the funny bits were actually funny, not cringingly bad like in 3, and since they effectively used the entire story of 1-6 I have the tiniest glimmer of hope that 8 will be something new, but I have a feeling I'll be even more massively disappointed than I was by this pile of recycling.

Bold? The main "sith" minion killing off the old guy that was starting to guide the orphan kid from a sandy backwater planet is considered bold? What the fuck does he consider boring?

Just off the top of my head:
- Finn is introduced in battle with another storm trooper getting shot and reaching up to leave a bloody hand print on his face... they never bothered at ANY point to show us why he cared about that particular comrade... not even 30 seconds inside the troop transport sharing a moment with that guy or something?
- Finn supposedly was farmed from birth to be a storm trooper... but suddenly he has a sense of humour and gets inside jokes and understands so much about the finer points of human interaction? Shouldn't he be like a robot being raised as a solider from birth? Also there's no explanation why he suddenly decides things aren't right... when would he have ever had a chance to question anything with all that programming? Why is he the only one out of millions of storm troopers that suddenly developed a conscience? No explanation given.
- The female alien with glasses they went to for help, she lives in literally the only building on a lush tree and island filled planet that's beautiful and it's just her building... when everyone else is within travel distance on sand and frozen nightmare planets??? Also, how the fuck did she get Luke's light sabre and why is it just sitting in a box in the sewer of her building? No commentary whatsoever on it!
- Rey just becomes an expert at everything she does in mere seconds, which is ridiculous even for a Jedi, she can't figure out how to feed herself on a planet without going to a pawn broker but she can repair the millenium falcon without hesitation and fly it in confined spaces outwitting expert tie fighter pilots

There's other stuff, but those were big things that pissed me off because there was absolutely no storytelling... just forced us from one scene to another and expects people to not ask any questions and just accept whatever they were shown. That's super lazy film-making.

because the Empire had fallen, clones would be difficult/hard for the crumbling New Order to come by; given the Republic taking over and disarming, hence the use of real people, but the option for clones is still out there; more so now that the New Order have taken out the main Republic planets.

but then again... they were able to create a ginormous death star planet under the Republics noses

That stupid map. Luke goes into solitude but apparently leaves a fucking map with somebody. The map is then acquired by people looking for him that they need to physically pick up and bring back to base, yet they're able to transmit sound to/from fighters traveling at lightspeed? You can apparently transmit information all over the place but a file with a map needs to be physically transported? And then the map is somehow of a system they can't recognize until it's shown to be smack in the middle of a bunch that they do? It just seemed like a lazy way to drag out finding Luke til the end of the movie.

I think Rey is a descendant or the granddaughter of Obi Wan. I think it is too obvious if she was Luke's daughter.