Great and full analysis. Additional effects such as Direction, cinematography, music and imagery mean a lot to the movie experience. Keep in mind these are movies not an audio book with images.

This report is brilliant.

Even the criticisms of parts of the book are good and pertinent.

A quibble- one major theme of the book is 'the sanction of the victim'. The movie looses this. Yes. But the comment about dissent is wrong-
CBJ may be right about 60 to 70 years ago, but today, despite all the social media and technology there is little dissent, the media is saturated with collectivists and their stories (propaganda). It is not just state funding but the big chains and their owners are playing for safety by pandering to the chattering classes (or perhaps feathering their own nest?).
Greens and reds are the mainstream and dissenters get a mention in passing only as far-right radicals. There is non-stop talk: anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti this, anti that, diversity and tolerance, helping the handicapped and disadvantaged, wall-to-wall pseudo-altruism. But the actions are uniformity and subservience to the authority of the mindless cheer leaders. Some contributors here go on about Mexicans and Muslims but the danger to human freedom (and welfare) is more from the new religion of carbon climate scares and sharing ad-nauseum, ideas perpetrated by mini-Soros fans and now Hollywood.

To return to the report. The task cannot be done without a serious rethink on the lines suggested.
To use the importance of rail to a modern audience is hard, I would have suggested electric power, but telecoms and mass media could be the way to go.

The book is too big, not so much too long as too many ideas to portray in a few visual hours. Hence, a min-series. Do not convert the book, or improve the movie, or even stick with characters, go back to basics - the themes.

Regarding Part II, 13:00:00 - I'm not sure that your references to the McCarthy Era are on point, in reference to why Ayn Rand did not put any dissenting voices in her novel. Rand actually testified as a "friendly witness" before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and opposed what she saw as infiltration of Communist ideas and ideals into movies and plays. And there was plenty of opposition to the blacklist, both within and outside of the media. I think the lack of public dissent portrayed in the novel was more a function of near-total public acceptance of altruist ideas, and fears of being labeled "selfish".