Of course, the first disclaimer is “we all have different interests and likes.” We were excited to sail aboard The Bliss based on many good reviews. I was a little hesitant because of the size and number of passengers. We just returned from the 7 day Mexican Riviera cruise. Weather was meltingly hot and humid in Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan. Cabo was quainter than we expected.
The good stuff - and it’s almost all good! Large ship, very clean and easy to get around (walking) and navigate. Beautiful art. Fantastic chandelier at Ocean Place atrium! Nicely appointed.
We had a balcony room, which was just fine. The closet is facing the sofa and it was quite awkward to access the hangers. I mean, there was 6” between sofa and closet door. Haha, we moved the bed down just a bit so we could squeeze in. There was room for summer stuff, but it might be tight to stow jackets and heavier clothing if you went to Alaska.
The bathroom was great. The glass enclosed shower was really a nice touch. There was also a little coffee maker in the room, which we used often. We had a mid ship location, slightly forward, and it was not far from elevators except.... (see cons).
We did not partake of any. speciality dining. The Local is open 24/7, and great for light meals. The Korean chicken wings were fabulous. The service was very nice. You could sit “outside” the restaurant, around the atrium, watching things happen, and they would bring you your food.
Taste and Savor main restaurants were very good with very good service. We usually booked a reservation to avoid any wait. After all, there are a LOT of people on this ship. It wasn’t five star dining (i.e., when the waiters come to your table and lift off all the domes covering your food at once, etc.), but we liked it. The appetizers are small, so don’t hesitate to order more than one.
The Manhattan room is larger and a bit noisy. We had the misfortune to go on a busy night with not many table choices. We were sat next to a table of 12 kids (parents were at different table). They were not bad kids...but they were kids, talking and doing all the stuff we all do. I mean, any party of 12 might be a little crazy. However, it took any quiet elegance away from the experience.
The Garden Cafe is their buffet and breakfast is insanely crowded. We loved the Indian food, the soft serve ice cream, the omelette station. Really, things were quite edible. There is free Iced tea, coffee, lemonade and water.
Gem of the ship: The Observation Lounge. This is truly an island of tranquility amidst a lot of action. It’s a large area, with great lounge chairs, views, and ambience. The PErFECT quiet space. Also, Suzanne Jade is wonderful at the Piano!!
The Bliss theater is huge. Get there at least 15 minutes early to obtain a good seat. You need reservations for “Jersey Boys” so do that prior to departing if you can. They also had a production called “Six” which was lots of fun~! They say it will be going to Broadway in the future.
Casino: pretty large with a LOT of slots. Most table games were 10.00 minimum, which meant we weren’t gambling.
If you like pools and slides, you have come to the right place. The kids (of all ages) loved it. There is also “Spice H20” club which is more adult, if you don’t want quite so much frenetic action. The crowd tends to be younger and livelier than on other cruise ships. However, it wasn’t “spring break” antics! Just happy people. Most were super polite and we had some good laughs - especially about the elevator waits.
The hot tubs were plentiful even on busy days. Surprise!
The Gym/fitness had plenty of treadmills but not much more in the way of exercise activities. I think one cardio class that was maybe held there. I do my own thing, but if you are looking for a lot of organized classes, forget it. Bring your own water to center or sip from the fountain. I didn’t try the Thermal Suite, which is a big upcharge. Based on the crowds everywhere else, I’m glad i didn’t. I have a feeling every lounge chair would be booked. That’s not tranquility to me. (Save that for the Haven Lounge, which i’m such is quite refined).
“The Waterfront” was nice to walk around during the day. It wasn’t crowded at all, so we sat there, looking out on the ocean, on one of the days at sea. Peace!
We found the staff to be friendly and accommodating. Our room steward, Roel, was so sweet. We aren’t demanding, but he learned our schedule so when we went out, our room was quickly made up. Thank you, Roel!
Take ten steps in just about any direction in a public area and you will find a very nice bar. I had two drinks on the vacation. They were each 13.30 with the tax and auto tip. A lot of people purchase the unlimited drink package. Keep in mind, even if it is a “free at sea” perk, the gratuities and tips are NOT, and they add up to at least 200.00 dollars - maybe more. - and everyone in your room has to purchase it.
I liked that the smoking area in the Casino was closed off with glass doors.
If you like to be casual, you will LOVE this cruise. There really is no real dress code. People wore shorts and flip flops everywhere except, i believe, in the uber fancy ocean blue restaurant.
The “Cons” I’m going to start with the very worst thing that happened on the ship. The debarkation. I know, it’s always a drag, but this one was a REAL drag. People left their rooms and hung in the stairs well before it was their turn, creating a nightmarish traffic jam everywhere. There were ZERO elevators to take. We survived, but pity anyone who is even slightly handicapped. We literally stood in a roped off line that wended all through the ship, two persons wide: through the casino, restaurants, down the hall, make a turn, etc etc. etc. It took us over 1 3/4 HOURS to debark, and we were carrying our OWN luggage. Customs was a bit slow, but NOTHING compared to (what i felt) the haphazard and thoughtless way to make guests feel like cattle as they departed their vacation. Standing for THAT long, without able to use the restroom, get something to drink, even sit for a second - the absolute PITS.
The obvious solution is to pay through the nose and book “The Haven” where there is preferred treatment. We couldn’t afford that, but, really, that’s the thing to do on this ship.
Disorganized entertainment listings: Using the NCL app, it said that “The Beatles” at the cavern was SOLD OUT. Not “first come, first served” - which is how it really is!!! We finally caught on, but it was very misleading and even the box office wasn’t clear. She said, “oh it’s sold out but you have a waiting line.” No, it’s first come, first served, and maybe a waiting line for people who don’t get in. I have a feeling this also applied to the Social Comedy club and that we missed out, thinking that it WAS sold out.
We didn’t find that many activities to do that we liked. That is just personal. Also, many featured things like “Deal or No Deal” have to be bought into, in order to even get a chance to play. It seemed that we were being nickel and dimed all the time. Some folks would say, “Well, i just pay for what i want and don’t overpay.,” Well said, but i like a more inclusive experience, I think.
Excursions: Glad we didn’t do any based on the crazy crowds that lined up. However, we walked to the marina in Cabo San Lucas, and you can easily grab a little boat trip out to Land’s End for 10.00 - that’s right, 10 bucks - per person. It was really fun and lasted about 45 minutes.
TV selection. I guess this is a cruise ship problem. There were few things to watch on TV. We like to chill in our stateroom in the afternoons, so it would have been nice to grab a movie or series. We saw one only (A STar is born).
Crowds crowds crowds. This wasn’t just our observation. The place can be a madhouse after the end of any show. People crowd the elevator areas and it’s very difficult to get a lift during some hours. VERY difficult. During the “next” cruise presentation, NCL said that except for one ship, future ships were going to be a tad smaller. I wouldn’t rule out a smaller NCL ship.
I didn’t like that they were always pushing the sale of some lotto ticket and chance to win money for the cruise. Like, before just about every show or presentation.
Shopping: o.k. Not as many high end watches (if ya care) or other souvenirs. I’ve seen more on smaller ships. Just saying...
Rooms: our end tables were 6” wide - that’s right, SIX INCHES - and everything kept on falling off. There were nice USB ports on the lamps. I didn’t find myself sitting on the balcony, BUT it was very fun to have when arriving or leaving port, or to grab a wonderful sunset.
In conclusion, this was a very fun cruise for us, and we enjoyed the entertainment, but didn’t find that many other activities to draw us in. (The game shows were held in the very active, noisy Atrium, so they weren’t as engaging as they would have been if held in a smaller club or bar).
All in all, I enjoyed my cruise on the Bliss. I don’t think i would sail her again because the crowd size and constant “pay for this” mentality that left me feeling a little disenchanted. It’s partly our fault, because we aren’t into go-carts and laser tag, which many adored. I think we prefer more of a classic shipboard atmosphere. It was GREAT that it wasn’t stuffy, but sometimes we missed certain traditional things.
Also, the disembarkation was really really awful. They need to spread it out or find ways to manage the hoards better. People totally lost their civility, getting in line 1 hour before their “color” was even called. They packed the elevators and stairwells, preventing an organized exit. This made things almost dangerously crowded and difficult. Then again, pay for the upscale “Haven” and i bet it was an entirely different animal. But one still might venture out into the huddled masses (which is how I felt) and then, ugh, very crowded. They need to explain how the smaller clubs work on the ship (first come, first served) and not say “This is sold out” on the activities app. That was really annoying! I loved ditching the “formal nights” and that nonsense. I like “freestyle dining” although it is still wise to book a table if you also have other evening plans. If you can afford it, “The Haven” is the way to go. It will give you a respite from the crowds as well as a lot of priority perks (including disembarkation). I personally would book a smaller, more upscale ship if i were going to spend that money, BUT if I had teens and pre-teens, might consider this ship because of the water features, laser tag, and track.
This is especially good for young adults and families, as there are singles cabins and plenty of music venues as well as that super water park and scary slides!

This is the continuation of my series highlighting specific critic's criticisms of TLJ. Part I on Humor is here, which also details my reasoning for this mining operation. Here we are covering Canto Bight, and we have everything from run of the mill iodized stuff to hail-sized rock salt on display, so adjust your goggles accordingly.

Johnson overplays his hand occasionally — most notably an unnecessary sequence at the casino city of Canto Bight that goes straight from a political sermon into a plot hole

Ethan Sacks, New York Daily News - Fresh

The bad news is, this involves an unnecessary trip to a kind of casino planet that doesn’t really advance the story.

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic - Fresh

A scene in an opulent casino is easily the most painful yet in this new generation of Star Wars flicks, eliciting images of the green screen busy set pieces of the early-2000 franchise additions, enticing to the youngest members of the audience who need their stories overly padded with shiny spectacle.

Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot - Fresh

Boyega is a loveable hero, and his new compadre Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) is a nice addition. However, as much as it isn’t overbearing, their entire sub-plot is when the adventure loses steam. This moves the film away from where all the interest is – Luke. At this point, it becomes a little disjointed and unnecessary, never reaching a point of excitement required for a chunk of plot of this degree.

Cameron Frew, FrewFilm - Fresh

an extended digression with Finn and Rose that doesn’t end up counting for much plotwise

Bob Chipman, Moviebob Central - Fresh

Sadly, Boyega's Finn -- still an appealing character -- is saddled with a go-nowhere plot-line that has him and Resistance mechanic Rose show up at a space casino and cross paths with a rogue with a heart of a gold (or maybe just rogue?) played by Benicio Del Toro. There's the kernel of interesting idea there as we glimpse the socioeconomic underpinnings of this galaxy far, far away in a way we've never seen before, but it's a digression whose payoff doesn't warrant the build-up. And when you're already the longest Star Wars ever made (two and a half hours!), some snipping here and there might not have been a bad idea.

Zaki Hasan, Zaki's Corner - Fresh

I’m not a big fan of Finn and Rose’s side adventure, which has the air of a spinoff story being tacked onto the main narrative (probably to give Finn a purpose, since Rey is doing her own thing with Luke). Apart from showcasing the power of hope on a younger generation, it’s not as well integrated into the seams of the larger story as it could’ve been.

Tomas Trussow, The Lonely Film Critic - Fresh

It’s Finn’s mission which takes the film off on a diversion where it didn’t really need to go. There’s a lot of comedic hijinks involved in all of this which George Lucas would have excised from the first draft of anything he ever wrote.

Niall Browne, Movies in Focus - Fresh

Much of the Canto Bight sequence feels unnecessary

Molly Templeton, Eugene Weekly - Fresh

First, both prominent new characters Rose and DJ seemed shoe-horned in, and Rose especially doesn't seem to have a real place in this film nor does she add anything to be hopeful about in the future. And while both Rey and Poe fans will probably be pleased with where their characters go, Finn sort of takes a step back, as he is sent off on a side adventure that seems like second-tier Star Wars. It's a diversion that takes up a good portion of the film and really serves no purpose to the overall story...worse yet, it seems to contain some heavy-handed political messages not commonly found, at least not this blatantly, in the Star Wars universe. These are more than just quibbles too: Most fans will not be used to the slow, lumbering pace or the general unevenness of this film...especially coming on the heels of the action-packed pacing that JJ Abrams brought in Episode VII.

Tom Santilli, AXS.com - Fresh

There’s some stuff that feels extraneous (the whole Canto Bight sequence, which seems to exist to set up a new Lando-like character played by Benicio del Toro), and the cycle of attack and retreat — mostly retreat — gets a bit monotonous.

Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com - Fresh

Muchas de las situaciones se sienten forzadas e innecesarias (por ejemplo, la aventura de Finn y Rose, me parece innecesaria).

Ruben Peralta Rigaud, Cocalecas - Fresh

Their jaunt to the casino planet of Canto Bight serves little purpose besides introducing Del Toro, updating the cantina scene, and offering up a tired CGI chase scene that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Attack of the Clones. Kudos (maybe) to Johnson for introducing income inequality to the Star Wars universe, but the entire sequence feels rushed and shoehorned into an already long movie.

Pete Vonder Haar Houston Press - Fresh

The weakest of these is Finn's. It's briskly paced and full of action yes, but let's just say a casino is no cantina... Worse, it also sees him interacting with Prequel Trilogy levels of CGI critters.

Karl Puschmann, New Zealand Herald - Fresh

But the worst distraction “The Last Jedi” has to offer involves erstwhile Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) and a Resistance maintenance worker named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), a subplot every bit as visually and narratively inept as Lucas’ prequels were taken as.

J. Olson, Cinemixtape - Rotten

Finn’s entire storyline could be cut and the film would be better off. As Finn was one of the driving-force leads of The Force Awakens and also a charming character, this is a disappointing development. His adventure is such a low point that it would not seem out of place in one of George Lucas’ efforts from between 1999 and 2005, and it serves little purpose to the film’s overall plot.

Alex Doenau, Trespass - Fresh

there’s too much going on in The Last Jedi, and a lot of it feels like filler. Besides the aforementioned, stalled-out space battle, there’s a clunky sequence in a casino that goes on far too long, a lot of distracting cameos, and new characters inhabited by Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro, who bring close to nothing to the proceedings.

Bob Grimm, Reno News and Review - Fresh

Finn and Rose (a new addition to the principal cast) distract the audience with an overlong and ultimately unnecessary side plot.

Richard Dove, International Business Times - Rotten

And this plotline feeds right into the absolutely unforgivably terrible subplot, which is the adventures of Finn (John Boyega) the cowardly ex-storm trooper, and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), the class-conscious engineer, who go on a fetch quest that is every bit as pointless as the whole matter of the military nonsense, only even worse, because it hinges on terrible comedy, bad CGI, and a spectacularly horrible moment when Johnson stops the film in its tracks to provide a ruthlessly on-the-nose lesson about economic inequality and the military-industrial complex.

Tim Brayton, Alternate Ending - Rotten

Some of what happens on the casino planet — called Canto Bight, and sure to figure in the next film — is goofy on a level as cringe-inducing as things we saw in the prequel trilogy; like, Jar-Jar Binks–awful.

MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher - Fresh

Johnson does his best to hustle from one location to the next, but the narrative has a tendency from time to time to drag. The biggest example of this are the scenes on Canto Bight. Which is a shame, because a huge chunk of the film’s message is established on these scenes. But the very nature of the story, with its many moving parts, inadvertently makes this section of the film feel like a diversion.

Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm - Fresh

The humour is kind of sour in other places, too, such as the silly neo-cantina scene as Finn and Rose track the whereabouts of a mysterious encrypter, who might be the rebellion’s last hope, into a sort of galactic Monte Carlo. The abundance of slapstick there and in other parts of the film doesn’t click and feels forced.

Diva Velez, TheDivaReview.com - Fresh

In an unnecessary and quite frankly preposterous third subplot, Finn (John Boyega) and a new character, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), race against the clock to locate an underworld figure who can help them neutralise the First Order’s tracking device, thus allowing the diminished rebel fleet to escape.

Vicky Roach, Daily Telegraph (Australia) - Rotten

Weak points come with awkward humour that lacks comedic rhythm and an unnecessary casino escapade, where a disposable underworld character DJ (Benicio del Toro) is introduced, that subsequently soft lens into what is essentially a children's adventure tale about animals

Craig Takeuchi, Georgia Straight - Fresh

Unfortunately, we keep getting dragged away from the only emotionally resonant portion of the film to watch Finn and Rose engage in sub-prequel hijinks on the casino planet. Everything here is forced and awful, visually uninteresting and often dark to the point of unwatchability, lousy with mawkish little kids making bug eyes at the camera as we marvel at the horror of economic inequality, and drowned in an atrocious patina of truly terrible CGI. It calls to mind the droid factory in Attack of the Clones and the pre-podrace sequence in The Phantom Menace. Most offensively, the whole Finn/Rose diversion has absolutely no importance to the forward momentum of the plot—it's utterly irrelevant, even nonsensical.

Sonny Bunch, Washington Free Beacon - Rotten

Not everything in the film works: a few of the goofier comic moments fail to land and true to the legacy of Lucas there’s a fair amount of eye-wincing dialogue. More importantly, the second act bows under the weight of too many narrative strands; Finn’s away mission comes off as a bit superfluous, as does Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Holdo, and both Rose and the beloved Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) are sadly underwritten. In a trade-off that brings scope and complexity, Johnson has sacrificed narrative efficiency.

Christopher Machell, CineVue - Fresh

I didn't like the sequence in a casino--a callback to the Star Wars Cantina, of course, but also a chance to discuss the evils of war profiteers and the 1%. There are creatures there, there's slapstick, there's a heist of sorts, and it all harks back to my favourite of Johnson's films, The Brothers Bloom, in the interplay between the characters, in the lightness and clarity of the scheme. But it's tonally disruptive, and it introduces a trio of children who seem like part of a different film.

Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central - Fresh

Finn and Rose’s trip to a gambling planet – basically a space Monaco – flits between light fun and on-the-nose political narrative.

Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle - Fresh

It also begs the question why the space casino sequence, arguably the least relevant to the core story, wasn’t dramatically trimmed back. Aside from a throwaway final shot, this section of the film is the weakest – designed to depict profiteering space-capitalism run rampant (ironically, also depicting a stable of space-horses also running rampant).

Patrick Kolan, Shotgun Cinema - Fresh

But as ingenious as this setup may be, it also gives rise to the film's most pointless subplot. After waking from his coma, Finn (John Boyega) contrives a means by which he can disable the New Order's tracking device, albeit one that requires him to sneak off the fleeing vessel, travel to a Monaco-styled casino planet, track down a master codebreaker and infiltrate the enemy's warship undetected. This enormous MacGuffin sees Boyega partnered with the charming Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico, a Resistance engineer low in status but high in pluck. The problem is that their side adventure does absolutely nothing to advance the actual story.

Tom Glasson, Concrete Playground - Fresh

Unfortunately, John Boyega’s Finn, Oscar Isaac’s Poe and Kelly Marie Tran—as Finn’s new partner-in-rebellion Rose—are given the equivalent of busywork while the rest of the cast moves the plot along.

Simon Miraudo, Student Edge - Fresh

A detour to a casino planet where Finn and a resistance mechanic named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) search for a codebreaker to help them disrupt the First Order's tracking of the retreating resistance ships feels like a trip into another movie. The stakes here seem far lower than the live-or-die scenario facing Poe, General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher) and the others trying to make their getaway.

Greg Maki Star-Democrat (Easton, MD) Fresh

The only characters not doing a huge amount of growing are Finn (John Boyega) and mechanic Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), and not for nothing, their subplot opens up a momentum drain that is the only weakness in The Last Jedi. Boyega and Tran are perfectly enjoyable, and their subplot isn’t a complete waste of time, but you start to feel the length of The Last Jedi when it veers off with them, and Finn’s arc is a pale echo of Poe’s so it’s not like much is being accomplished.

Sarah Marrs Lainey Gossip Fresh

Rey’s journey toward learning the ways of the Jedi is far more entertaining than Finn’s convoluted (and ultimately pointless) storyline

Josh Bell Las Vegas Weekly Fresh

Rose’s character is front and center in the film’s weakest sequences. We’re diverted to a city where the worst of the worst frolic. No, not the usual hives of scum and villainy. It’s a casino where the very, very rich cavort. The evil One Percenters! If you’re not immediately yanked out of the story here you deserve a prize. The accompanying dialogue is equally clunky, as is the reason all these vapid souls gained their fortunes.

Christian Toto, HollywoodInToto.com - Rotten

Far less successful is the time spent with the rebels on the run from Hux and the First Order. Not only is it centered on the slowest space chase in sci-fi history, but subplots featuring Poe, Finn (John Boyega), and Rose (newcomer Kelly Marie Tran) go absolutely nowhere. Sure we get introduced to DJ (Benicio Del Toro) and Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern), but it’s with actions that fail to connect either through sheer stupidity or the simple truth that their absence wouldn’t change the story in the slightest. They’re obvious filler, and as is the Disney way (witness their Marvel films) the studio’s never met a character that couldn’t be jammed into a movie for no reason other than the misguided belief that more is better. Finn and Rose’s adventure in particular offers some additional action beats and a visit to a casino — think the Mos Eisley Cantina scene from Star Wars, but for the 1% — but it is meaningless noise.

Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects - Fresh

Meanwhile, what feels too much like the “B plot” side adventure has Finn and Rose on a mission that takes them into another film entirely, a sort of intergalactic James Bond-meets-Free Willy. It’s hard not to feel that their entire subplot could be axed in order to make The Last Jedi stronger and tighter, which is unfortunate.

Kaila Hale-Stern, The Mary Sue - Fresh

There is a whole section that feels out of kilter and harks back to the CGI naffness of the prequels — and is also virtually pointless to the plot.

Jamie East, The Sun (UK) - Fresh

The film’s epic 150-minute runtime allows plenty of room for Johnson’s inventiveness, but there’s also a tiny bit of fat in the middle of the movie, specifically in the Canto Bight scenes with Finn and Rose. The casino city itself is gorgeous and has some crazy-cool characters, plus Finn and Rose’s presence there shines a light on some new, worthwhile themes for the Star Wars franchise. However, in terms of the overall story, the whole escapade feels a little pointless and small. It doesn’t help that Benicio del Toro’s new character, DJ, who is part of the same storyline, is largely insignificant.

Germain Lussier, io9.com - Fresh

Star Wars: The Last Jedi does have a clear weak spot -- specifically the side plot that develops between Finn (John Boyega) and newly-introduced Resistance member Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). Following a genuinely funny meet-up between the two characters, they are given their own special mission searching for a codebreaker who can assist in the battle against the First Order. But this storyline never feels particularly inspired or impactful as everything else going down in the movie. While it is constructed to fit with the larger themes of the film, features its own interesting expectation-flipping turns, and does eventually have a key impact on the macro scale, it's also the only part of the feature that ever feels expendable, and not helping anything is that it features the weakest visual effects of the blockbuster (especially during a second-act chase sequence).

Eric Eisenberg, CinemaBlend - Fresh

Finn and Rose’s mission takes them to Canto Bight, a kind of Monte Carlo peopled by extras from Babylon 5, and feels like it is just ticking the Weird Alien Bar box started by the Cantina. A ride on space horses also feels like a needless diversion, as does Benicio Del Toro’s space rogue, whose strange, laconic presence never really makes its mark.

Ian Freer, Empire Magazine - Fresh

It’s a shame, then, that the righteousness of Finn and Rose’s place in the film is undermined slightly by the limpness of their mission. Perhaps feeling there had to be some kind of Mos Eisley–esque sequence in the film, Johnson sends the pair to a casino city full of all kinds of creatures. It’s fun, sure, but the whole operation ultimately turns out to be a red herring. At least there’s some nice musing on liberation during this stretch, reminding us of the real stakes of this long story—freedom is, after all, what the Empire denies and the Rebel Alliance promises. And in a gorgeous third-act sequence—which includes the film’s true Empire Strikes Back homage—Finn and Rose finally get the emboldened moments they deserve. I just wish they fit more integrally into the central thesis of the film, that they were just as special, in their way, as Rey is, glinting with messianic power as she ascends.

Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair - Fresh

Of the three simultaneous plots, it’s Finn’s that sometimes drags down the energy, particularly with an introduction of a shady thief played by Benicio del Toro, the only new addition to the cast that doesn’t quite work; he seems to be acting in his own private movie, and it’s not as good as this one.

Will Leitch Paste Magazine - Fresh

Where the film struggles the most is on Canto Bight. Taken on her own, Rose isn’t a bad addition to the Star Wars mythos, and the movie definitely needs someone to play against Finn. Unfortunately, they lack the electric chemistry we saw between Finn and Rey in The Force Awakens, and their secret mission in a casino feels like it should be far more entertaining than it actually is.

Matt Goldberg, Collider - Fresh

Some action sequences are superfluous and unengaging. Benicio del Toro all but cameos as a sort of hobo hustler, while John Boyega’s Finn is sidelined, relegated to relatively inconsequential hi-jinx.

Alex Godfrey, GQ Magazine [UK] - Fresh

Finn (John Boyega) and newcomer Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) attempt an espionage mission that takes them to what is the Star Wars equivalent of the French Riviera. It’s a casino city named Canto Bight, and their adventures here push the Rick’s Café sensibilities from the original Star Wars’ cantina sequence to their limit. Nevertheless, this entire subplot amounts to a whole lot of padding while the real tough and revelatory decisions are made on Ahch-To.

David Crow, Den of Geek - Fresh

Plot-wise, I felt the entire side story at the casino world of Canto Bight was unnecessary. If you cut the entire sequence out of the film, it would have little impact on the core narrative.

Scott Chitwood ComingSoon.net - Fresh

Finn (John Boyega) wakes up, meets a admiring fan down in maintenance named Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) and they head off on their own adventure, a detour that somehow combines the louche slickness of Cloud City and moralizing at its most Disney.

Joe Gross, Austin American-Statesman - Fresh

But The Last Jedi’s two-and-half-hour sprawl still includes an awful lot of clunky, derivative, and largely unnecessary incidents to wade through in order to get to its maverick last act. This is especially true when it comes to the plausibility-straining mission of stormtrooper turned Rebel Alliance fighter Finn (John Boyega) and puckish series newcomer Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran).

Sam C. Mac, Slant Magazine - Rotten

There are a couple of big names that fail to deliver much aside from, perhaps, realizing their childhood dreams of being in a “Star Wars” movie. A trip to a city that might as well be called Space Macau also fails to pay many dividends.

Christopher Lawrence, Las Vegas Review-Journal - Fresh

Case in point is the plot involving Finn (John Boyega) and new hero Rose's (Kelly Marie Tran) McGuffinesque mission to Canto Bight, which is of the ashtray-on-a-speederbike variety, and takes away from the tension cranked up elsewhere.

Harry Guerin, RTÉ (Ireland) - Fresh

The remaining 20% is made up of two different locales, one of which is entirely superfluous to the story. Essentially, there is a subplot that introduces Benicio del Toro’s mysterious work of eccentricity, except it doesn’t really do much of interest with him. Admittedly, it feels as if the character could be destined for bigger things in the final chapter, but I can only go off of what I watched, and well, the middle portion of The Last Jedi is stuck in the furthest setting from lightspeed. The journey expands to a space-Vegas full of various alien life forms and inhabitants, but it’s not as visually striking as previously explored planets. Additionally, by design, there seems to be filler injected simply because the other characters need things to do while Rey accomplishes what she needs to with Luke.

Robert Kojder, Flickering Myth - Fresh

The scenes on Canto Bight seemed like an unnecessary divert for Rose (a new character I actually really like) and Finn. This “casino planet” was like a scene right out of a low-budget Sy-Fy channel movie shot in Vancouver. It felt too familiar and earthbound to be a scene in an other-worldly scene in a Star Wars movie. The Rose/Finn alien horse race through the casino that ruined the galactic one-percenters good time and did some property damage was just ridiculous and should have been cut. Rose and Finn flopping around on the alien horse just looked like a bad theme park ride.

Chris Gore, Film Threat - Fresh

There’s a lengthy diversion to the casino planet of Canto Bight that feels pointless and tacked on just for the sake of giving us a cool new corner of the galaxy to feast our eyes on.

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly - Fresh
And that's it for Part II. Happy Holidays to all my fellow fans and miners! Next week I will conclude with Part III, which will cover- well, let's just say it's the longest of this series by far. Heh.

Part 1/3: https://www.reddit.com/saltierthancrait/comments/a7tzug/critics_criticisms_part_i_humo
Part 2/3: https://www.reddit.com/saltierthancrait/comments/a91mnv/critics_criticisms_part_ii_canto_bight/
Part 3/3: https://www.reddit.com/saltierthancrait/comments/aahmu6/critics_criticisms_part_iii_length/

Part 1/3

Critic's Criticisms Part I: Humor

A few months ago I completed a read through of all ~400 TLJ reviews on RT(now up to ~415). It was painfully boring at times, but that's salt mining for you. I wanted to get a handle on the critical reception which is commonly cited as universal praise. While it's generally true that critics loved TLJ, they also had some criticisms that would be right at home here at STC, and these come from super experienced and intellectual film critics, so they have to be valid, right? After all, these people know so much more about film than a layperson. They can fully evaluate a film on countless criteria that average fans don't comprehend. /s, but you see where I'm going here: many TLJ fans have put critics on a pedestal, as if their opinion is somehow more valuable as a baseline for TLJ's quality. So what about when critics are echoing our own criticisms of TLJ?
Almost every criticism we have lobbed at this movie was shared by at least a few critics, but there were three main criticisms that stood out as the most common. I'll start this series with humor in TLJ.
Peter Debruge, Variety -Fresh

Luke is funnier than we’ve ever seen him — a personality change that betrays how “Star Wars” has been influenced by industry trends. Though the series has always been self-aware enough to crack jokes, it now gives in to the same winking self-parody that is poisoning other franchises of late, from the Marvel movies to “Pirates of the Caribbean.” But it begs the question: If movies can’t take themselves seriously, why should audiences?
Harrison Ford was a good enough actor, and Han Solo an aloof enough character, that he could get away with it, but here, the laughs feel forced — as does the appearance of cuddly critters on each new planet.

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter -Fresh

General Hux, who's goofily played by Domhnall Gleeson as if he were acting in a Monty Pythonesque parody

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger -Fresh

humor is not only prevalent but often turned, mockingly, on the self-serious mythology of the whole saga. Sometimes there are too many jokes; certainly there's an overabundance of cutesy aliens.

Niall Browne, Movies in Focus -Fresh

It’s Finn’s mission which takes the film off on a diversion where it didn’t really need to go. There’s a lot of comedic hijinks involved in all of this which George Lucas would have excised from the first draft of anything he ever wrote.
There’s more humour in The Last Jedi than previous Star Wars movies; some of it hits, some of it doesn’t. The much publicised Porgs work for a moment or two, but they outstay their welcome. The film drew to a halt too many times to show-odd cute creatures. I didn’t care for the crystal wolves during the climatic battle and the aforementioned space Llamas feel like they belong in a Disney movie (wait, this is a Disney movie!)

Rendy Jones, Rendy Reviews -Fresh

"The Last Jedi" is a movie that follows elements of other Star Wars movies that works on its own but feels so similar to a Marvel film because the first half of this movie is a comedy. Seriously a lot of the first half of the movie has a silly vibe amongst all the death and destruction that surrounds it. It desperately tries to be a parody of itself by making serious situations comedic.

Ruben Rosario, MiamiArtZine -Fresh

Much has also been made of “Jedi's” jarring tonal shifts. Johnson inserts broad humor, then abruptly makes things serious, then back again to goofy content.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Film Festival Today -Fresh

[Kylo's] partner in evil, Domnhall Gleeson, as General Hux, is less fine, though much of the problem stems not so much from the actor as from the tonally strange, abusively co-dependent relationship between the two men; their jokey rapport feels like it belongs in a very different movie.

Alex Doenau, Trespass -Fresh

However, from the beginning there’s a discordant sense of humour that’s somewhat counter to the series’ ethos to date: rather than funny situations rising organically in the script, many of the characters openly seem to be making jokes. It’s how we introduce Poe this go-round, and it feels slightly off.

Owen Richards, The Arts Desk -Fresh

There’s a surprising amount of comedy in the film, quite a bit at the expense of beloved characters or series law; it’s funny, but not respectful.

Tim Brayton , Alternate Ending -Rotten

The Last Jedi has an impressively poor batting average for its jokes: it opens with a vengefully dumb "I have a bad phone connection" bit that put me on the movie's bad side basically as soon as it had a side to be on, and it's not exactly all uphill from there.

James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk -Fresh

Sometimes, however, his proclivities come at the film’s expense, such as his penchant for inserting quippy humor, sarcasm, and sight gags at odd times, which often undercuts the drama or simply smacks of too much effort.

Craig Takeuchi, Georgia Straight -Fresh

Weak points come with awkward humour that lacks comedic rhythm and an unnecessary casino escapade, where a disposable underworld character DJ (Benicio del Toro) is introduced, that subsequently soft lens into what is essentially a children's adventure tale about animals.

Rob Dean, Bullz-Eye.com -Fresh

Further pushing the disconnect is that the script is far too self-aware, constantly making the sort of jokes that nerds have been making about “Star Wars” for decades, as if it’s too cool to purely accept itself on its own merits. The comedy works about half the time, but there are a ton of jokes in this film that underscore all of the overly serious talk of hope that populates the movie.

Sonny Bunch, Washington Free Beacon - Rotten

Johnson tries too hard on the humor front. Just one, brief, example: The whole opening sequences involves Poe doing conference call shtick while trolling Admiral Hux (Domhnall Gleeson). It's weirdly un-Star-Wars in the sense that it feels like something you could see on any dreadful sitcom here on planet Earth; this sequence is more fit for The Big Bang Theory than a supposedly dark entry in the Star Wars canon. The Star Wars movies have always been funny, of course, and there are moments when Johnson makes it work in a Star-Wars-sort-of-way. On the whole, though, it feels desperate and forced.

Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru - Rotten

Johnson's screenplay awkwardly blend action and drama with comedy and little bit of tacked-on romance. One particular scene involving an image that's not what it initially appears to be comes out of nowhere and feels like it belongs in a parody of Star Wars even though it does generate laughter.

Tom Glasson, Concrete Playground -Fresh

With more gags, one-liners and quirky moments than all the other Star Wars films combined, The Last Jedi introduces a levity to the staid franchise in the vein of Roger Moore's turn as post-Connery Bond. At times it works, even to the point of guffaws, but ultimately the humour feels misplaced. In a story where loss abounds and crushing defeat looms large at every turn, the repeated cutaways to doe-eyed porgs purring like extras from a Pixar film distract more than they entertain. So, too, does Domhnall Gleeson, whose character General Hux plays more like a parody of a Star Wars villain. As a result, both the New Order and the film itself are robbed of their most enduring menace: the Empire.

Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com -Fresh

In “The Last Jedi,” we watch Poe poke at Hux, who’s been turned into a buffoon for the new film, teasing him by faking communication issues and sharing an opinion about his mother. It’s the first of many awkward attempts at humor from Johnson, who isn’t known for funny business

Kevin McCarthy, WTTG-TV -Fresh

The first act of the film features major pacing issues combined with unnecessary comedic moments that ultimately hurt the tone of the film. Unfortunately, a lot of this comes from Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker character.

Jonathan W. Hickman, Daily Film Fix -Fresh

I found myself frustrated that the tone was comedy and sometimes almost veered into parody.
Everything else is jokes and comedic references with a side of cheese. I found myself shaking my head more than laughing along.

Ray Greene, CineGods.com - Rotten

But it also doesn’t feel quite right — the language, the iconography, the weirdly campy humor at the beginning — it doesn’t feel a part of the Star Wars universe.

Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly -Fresh

The less said about the awkward attempts at comic relief, the better.

Matt Looker, TheShiznit.co.uk -Fresh

the comedy - and there is plenty of it - is spread out more evenly across the whole cast. In the case of Domhnall Gleeson's Hux, this becomes a good opportunity to poke fun at the horribly hammy performance he gave in The Force Awakens. But when he is playing those laughs off against his only foil - Kylo Ren - Johnson threatens to undermine their status as epic villains.

Christian Toto, HollywoodInToto.com - Rotten

Johnson drops plenty of cutesy comic moments into the mix, some of which would make even George Lucas blush. What was passable in 1977 no longer flies as easily today. And a franchise as esteemed as this one deserves richer comic relief.

Mark Hughes, Forbes -Fresh

The first act's humor is the shakiest, with some gags seeming more like something out of a Star Wars satire. The tone and irreverence of it was out of place, and a couple of bits went on one or two beats too long.

Scott Menzel, We Live Entertainment -Fresh

Speaking of laughs, the jokes and humor just fall flat. The jokes seemed out of place or were just so “on the nose” that I couldn’t help but be annoyed by them. I feel like the modern day humor didn’t feel the tone of the story and yet Johnson kept trying to lighten the mood by adding in cheesy jokes that weren’t even remotely amusing but instead were rather cringe-worthy.

Kevin Jagernauth The Playlist -Fresh

In the pursuit of providing some buoyancy to the picture, Johnson wields comedy like a sword, but it’s unfortunately the weakest element of the film. “Star Wars” has always been home to plenty of cornball one liners, and comedic passages, but there’s a delicacy to how they’re employed and delivered that allows them to land….or simply fall flat. Far too often, it’s the latter outcome in this picture, with some of the laughs feeling underwritten or simply shoehorned in. There’s a distinct lack of cleverness to the wit employed here — think something as seemingly spontaneous as BB-8’s “thumbs up” in ‘The Force Awakens’ — and while the gags don’t grind the picture to a halt, there are certainly some awkward patches where the expected laughs don’t materialize.

Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects -Fresh

The film is a series of points both high and low, and it’s nowhere more clear than in the humor. Several beats work well to bring a smile, but others fall tone deaf to the carnage and pain surrounding them. From the very beginning Hux’s scenes are made to feel like lost reels from Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, and poor Boyega can’t catch a break as Finn is saddled with lame one-liners at every turn.

Alex Godfrey, GQ Magazine [UK] -Fresh

It’s funny, though not always when you want it to be – perhaps fearing too much gravitas, Johnson undermines it a little too often.

Robert Kojder, Flickering Myth -Fresh

Rian Johnson has crafted an installment that largely defies saga standard narrative structure and tone. There is a quick comedic dialogue exchange in the beginning between Oscar Isaac’s fighter pilot Poe Dameron and Domhnall Gleeson’s First Order General Hux that falls in line with the brand of humor Disney and Marvel inject into that particular cinematic universe.

John Serba, MLive.com -Fresh

Some stabs at comedy feel overwrought and clunky, including a stint on a ritzy planet of war profiteers, an extended sequence of skillfully directed silliness destined to be beloved fodder for apologists only.

Up next is Part II: Canto Bight.
​

Part 2/3

Critic's Criticisms Part II: Canto Bight

This is the continuation of my series highlighting specific critic's criticisms of TLJ. Part I on Humor is here, which also details my reasoning for this mining operation. Here we are covering Canto Bight, and we have everything from run of the mill iodized stuff to hail-sized rock salt on display, so adjust your goggles accordingly.

Johnson overplays his hand occasionally — most notably an unnecessary sequence at the casino city of Canto Bight that goes straight from a political sermon into a plot hole

Ethan Sacks, New York Daily News - Fresh

The bad news is, this involves an unnecessary trip to a kind of casino planet that doesn’t really advance the story.

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic - Fresh

A scene in an opulent casino is easily the most painful yet in this new generation of Star Wars flicks, eliciting images of the green screen busy set pieces of the early-2000 franchise additions, enticing to the youngest members of the audience who need their stories overly padded with shiny spectacle.

Matt Oakes, Silver Screen Riot - Fresh

Boyega is a loveable hero, and his new compadre Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) is a nice addition. However, as much as it isn’t overbearing, their entire sub-plot is when the adventure loses steam. This moves the film away from where all the interest is – Luke. At this point, it becomes a little disjointed and unnecessary, never reaching a point of excitement required for a chunk of plot of this degree.

Cameron Frew, FrewFilm - Fresh

an extended digression with Finn and Rose that doesn’t end up counting for much plotwise

Bob Chipman, Moviebob Central - Fresh

Sadly, Boyega's Finn -- still an appealing character -- is saddled with a go-nowhere plot-line that has him and Resistance mechanic Rose show up at a space casino and cross paths with a rogue with a heart of a gold (or maybe just rogue?) played by Benicio Del Toro. There's the kernel of interesting idea there as we glimpse the socioeconomic underpinnings of this galaxy far, far away in a way we've never seen before, but it's a digression whose payoff doesn't warrant the build-up. And when you're already the longest Star Wars ever made (two and a half hours!), some snipping here and there might not have been a bad idea.

Zaki Hasan, Zaki's Corner - Fresh

I’m not a big fan of Finn and Rose’s side adventure, which has the air of a spinoff story being tacked onto the main narrative (probably to give Finn a purpose, since Rey is doing her own thing with Luke). Apart from showcasing the power of hope on a younger generation, it’s not as well integrated into the seams of the larger story as it could’ve been.

Tomas Trussow, The Lonely Film Critic - Fresh

It’s Finn’s mission which takes the film off on a diversion where it didn’t really need to go. There’s a lot of comedic hijinks involved in all of this which George Lucas would have excised from the first draft of anything he ever wrote.

Niall Browne, Movies in Focus - Fresh

Much of the Canto Bight sequence feels unnecessary

Molly Templeton, Eugene Weekly - Fresh

First, both prominent new characters Rose and DJ seemed shoe-horned in, and Rose especially doesn't seem to have a real place in this film nor does she add anything to be hopeful about in the future. And while both Rey and Poe fans will probably be pleased with where their characters go, Finn sort of takes a step back, as he is sent off on a side adventure that seems like second-tier Star Wars. It's a diversion that takes up a good portion of the film and really serves no purpose to the overall story...worse yet, it seems to contain some heavy-handed political messages not commonly found, at least not this blatantly, in the Star Wars universe. These are more than just quibbles too: Most fans will not be used to the slow, lumbering pace or the general unevenness of this film...especially coming on the heels of the action-packed pacing that JJ Abrams brought in Episode VII.

Tom Santilli, AXS.com - Fresh

There’s some stuff that feels extraneous (the whole Canto Bight sequence, which seems to exist to set up a new Lando-like character played by Benicio del Toro), and the cycle of attack and retreat — mostly retreat — gets a bit monotonous.

Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com - Fresh

Muchas de las situaciones se sienten forzadas e innecesarias (por ejemplo, la aventura de Finn y Rose, me parece innecesaria).

Ruben Peralta Rigaud, Cocalecas - Fresh

Their jaunt to the casino planet of Canto Bight serves little purpose besides introducing Del Toro, updating the cantina scene, and offering up a tired CGI chase scene that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Attack of the Clones. Kudos (maybe) to Johnson for introducing income inequality to the Star Wars universe, but the entire sequence feels rushed and shoehorned into an already long movie.

Pete Vonder Haar Houston Press - Fresh

The weakest of these is Finn's. It's briskly paced and full of action yes, but let's just say a casino is no cantina... Worse, it also sees him interacting with Prequel Trilogy levels of CGI critters.

Karl Puschmann, New Zealand Herald - Fresh

But the worst distraction “The Last Jedi” has to offer involves erstwhile Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) and a Resistance maintenance worker named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), a subplot every bit as visually and narratively inept as Lucas’ prequels were taken as.

J. Olson, Cinemixtape - Rotten

Finn’s entire storyline could be cut and the film would be better off. As Finn was one of the driving-force leads of The Force Awakens and also a charming character, this is a disappointing development. His adventure is such a low point that it would not seem out of place in one of George Lucas’ efforts from between 1999 and 2005, and it serves little purpose to the film’s overall plot.

Alex Doenau, Trespass - Fresh

there’s too much going on in The Last Jedi, and a lot of it feels like filler. Besides the aforementioned, stalled-out space battle, there’s a clunky sequence in a casino that goes on far too long, a lot of distracting cameos, and new characters inhabited by Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro, who bring close to nothing to the proceedings.

Bob Grimm, Reno News and Review - Fresh

Finn and Rose (a new addition to the principal cast) distract the audience with an overlong and ultimately unnecessary side plot.

Richard Dove, International Business Times - Rotten

And this plotline feeds right into the absolutely unforgivably terrible subplot, which is the adventures of Finn (John Boyega) the cowardly ex-storm trooper, and Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), the class-conscious engineer, who go on a fetch quest that is every bit as pointless as the whole matter of the military nonsense, only even worse, because it hinges on terrible comedy, bad CGI, and a spectacularly horrible moment when Johnson stops the film in its tracks to provide a ruthlessly on-the-nose lesson about economic inequality and the military-industrial complex.

Tim Brayton, Alternate Ending - Rotten

Some of what happens on the casino planet — called Canto Bight, and sure to figure in the next film — is goofy on a level as cringe-inducing as things we saw in the prequel trilogy; like, Jar-Jar Binks–awful.

MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher - Fresh

Johnson does his best to hustle from one location to the next, but the narrative has a tendency from time to time to drag. The biggest example of this are the scenes on Canto Bight. Which is a shame, because a huge chunk of the film’s message is established on these scenes. But the very nature of the story, with its many moving parts, inadvertently makes this section of the film feel like a diversion.

Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm - Fresh

The humour is kind of sour in other places, too, such as the silly neo-cantina scene as Finn and Rose track the whereabouts of a mysterious encrypter, who might be the rebellion’s last hope, into a sort of galactic Monte Carlo. The abundance of slapstick there and in other parts of the film doesn’t click and feels forced.

Diva Velez, TheDivaReview.com - Fresh

In an unnecessary and quite frankly preposterous third subplot, Finn (John Boyega) and a new character, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), race against the clock to locate an underworld figure who can help them neutralise the First Order’s tracking device, thus allowing the diminished rebel fleet to escape.

Vicky Roach, Daily Telegraph (Australia) - Rotten

Weak points come with awkward humour that lacks comedic rhythm and an unnecessary casino escapade, where a disposable underworld character DJ (Benicio del Toro) is introduced, that subsequently soft lens into what is essentially a children's adventure tale about animals

Craig Takeuchi, Georgia Straight - Fresh

Unfortunately, we keep getting dragged away from the only emotionally resonant portion of the film to watch Finn and Rose engage in sub-prequel hijinks on the casino planet. Everything here is forced and awful, visually uninteresting and often dark to the point of unwatchability, lousy with mawkish little kids making bug eyes at the camera as we marvel at the horror of economic inequality, and drowned in an atrocious patina of truly terrible CGI. It calls to mind the droid factory in Attack of the Clones and the pre-podrace sequence in The Phantom Menace. Most offensively, the whole Finn/Rose diversion has absolutely no importance to the forward momentum of the plot—it's utterly irrelevant, even nonsensical.

Sonny Bunch, Washington Free Beacon - Rotten

Not everything in the film works: a few of the goofier comic moments fail to land and true to the legacy of Lucas there’s a fair amount of eye-wincing dialogue. More importantly, the second act bows under the weight of too many narrative strands; Finn’s away mission comes off as a bit superfluous, as does Laura Dern’s Vice Admiral Holdo, and both Rose and the beloved Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) are sadly underwritten. In a trade-off that brings scope and complexity, Johnson has sacrificed narrative efficiency.

Christopher Machell, CineVue - Fresh

I didn't like the sequence in a casino--a callback to the Star Wars Cantina, of course, but also a chance to discuss the evils of war profiteers and the 1%. There are creatures there, there's slapstick, there's a heist of sorts, and it all harks back to my favourite of Johnson's films, The Brothers Bloom, in the interplay between the characters, in the lightness and clarity of the scheme. But it's tonally disruptive, and it introduces a trio of children who seem like part of a different film.

Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central - Fresh

Finn and Rose’s trip to a gambling planet – basically a space Monaco – flits between light fun and on-the-nose political narrative.

Richard Whittaker, Austin Chronicle - Fresh

It also begs the question why the space casino sequence, arguably the least relevant to the core story, wasn’t dramatically trimmed back. Aside from a throwaway final shot, this section of the film is the weakest – designed to depict profiteering space-capitalism run rampant (ironically, also depicting a stable of space-horses also running rampant).

Patrick Kolan, Shotgun Cinema - Fresh

But as ingenious as this setup may be, it also gives rise to the film's most pointless subplot. After waking from his coma, Finn (John Boyega) contrives a means by which he can disable the New Order's tracking device, albeit one that requires him to sneak off the fleeing vessel, travel to a Monaco-styled casino planet, track down a master codebreaker and infiltrate the enemy's warship undetected. This enormous MacGuffin sees Boyega partnered with the charming Kelly Marie Tran as Rose Tico, a Resistance engineer low in status but high in pluck. The problem is that their side adventure does absolutely nothing to advance the actual story.

Tom Glasson, Concrete Playground - Fresh

Unfortunately, John Boyega’s Finn, Oscar Isaac’s Poe and Kelly Marie Tran—as Finn’s new partner-in-rebellion Rose—are given the equivalent of busywork while the rest of the cast moves the plot along.

Simon Miraudo, Student Edge - Fresh

A detour to a casino planet where Finn and a resistance mechanic named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) search for a codebreaker to help them disrupt the First Order's tracking of the retreating resistance ships feels like a trip into another movie. The stakes here seem far lower than the live-or-die scenario facing Poe, General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher) and the others trying to make their getaway.

Greg Maki Star-Democrat (Easton, MD) Fresh

The only characters not doing a huge amount of growing are Finn (John Boyega) and mechanic Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), and not for nothing, their subplot opens up a momentum drain that is the only weakness in The Last Jedi. Boyega and Tran are perfectly enjoyable, and their subplot isn’t a complete waste of time, but you start to feel the length of The Last Jedi when it veers off with them, and Finn’s arc is a pale echo of Poe’s so it’s not like much is being accomplished.

Sarah Marrs Lainey Gossip Fresh

Rey’s journey toward learning the ways of the Jedi is far more entertaining than Finn’s convoluted (and ultimately pointless) storyline

Josh Bell Las Vegas Weekly Fresh

Rose’s character is front and center in the film’s weakest sequences. We’re diverted to a city where the worst of the worst frolic. No, not the usual hives of scum and villainy. It’s a casino where the very, very rich cavort. The evil One Percenters! If you’re not immediately yanked out of the story here you deserve a prize. The accompanying dialogue is equally clunky, as is the reason all these vapid souls gained their fortunes.

Christian Toto, HollywoodInToto.com - Rotten

Far less successful is the time spent with the rebels on the run from Hux and the First Order. Not only is it centered on the slowest space chase in sci-fi history, but subplots featuring Poe, Finn (John Boyega), and Rose (newcomer Kelly Marie Tran) go absolutely nowhere. Sure we get introduced to DJ (Benicio Del Toro) and Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern), but it’s with actions that fail to connect either through sheer stupidity or the simple truth that their absence wouldn’t change the story in the slightest. They’re obvious filler, and as is the Disney way (witness their Marvel films) the studio’s never met a character that couldn’t be jammed into a movie for no reason other than the misguided belief that more is better. Finn and Rose’s adventure in particular offers some additional action beats and a visit to a casino — think the Mos Eisley Cantina scene from Star Wars, but for the 1% — but it is meaningless noise.

Rob Hunter, Film School Rejects - Fresh

Meanwhile, what feels too much like the “B plot” side adventure has Finn and Rose on a mission that takes them into another film entirely, a sort of intergalactic James Bond-meets-Free Willy. It’s hard not to feel that their entire subplot could be axed in order to make The Last Jedi stronger and tighter, which is unfortunate.

Kaila Hale-Stern, The Mary Sue - Fresh

There is a whole section that feels out of kilter and harks back to the CGI naffness of the prequels — and is also virtually pointless to the plot.

Jamie East, The Sun (UK) - Fresh

The film’s epic 150-minute runtime allows plenty of room for Johnson’s inventiveness, but there’s also a tiny bit of fat in the middle of the movie, specifically in the Canto Bight scenes with Finn and Rose. The casino city itself is gorgeous and has some crazy-cool characters, plus Finn and Rose’s presence there shines a light on some new, worthwhile themes for the Star Wars franchise. However, in terms of the overall story, the whole escapade feels a little pointless and small. It doesn’t help that Benicio del Toro’s new character, DJ, who is part of the same storyline, is largely insignificant.

Germain Lussier, io9.com - Fresh

Star Wars: The Last Jedi does have a clear weak spot -- specifically the side plot that develops between Finn (John Boyega) and newly-introduced Resistance member Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran). Following a genuinely funny meet-up between the two characters, they are given their own special mission searching for a codebreaker who can assist in the battle against the First Order. But this storyline never feels particularly inspired or impactful as everything else going down in the movie. While it is constructed to fit with the larger themes of the film, features its own interesting expectation-flipping turns, and does eventually have a key impact on the macro scale, it's also the only part of the feature that ever feels expendable, and not helping anything is that it features the weakest visual effects of the blockbuster (especially during a second-act chase sequence).

Eric Eisenberg, CinemaBlend - Fresh

Finn and Rose’s mission takes them to Canto Bight, a kind of Monte Carlo peopled by extras from Babylon 5, and feels like it is just ticking the Weird Alien Bar box started by the Cantina. A ride on space horses also feels like a needless diversion, as does Benicio Del Toro’s space rogue, whose strange, laconic presence never really makes its mark.

Ian Freer, Empire Magazine - Fresh

It’s a shame, then, that the righteousness of Finn and Rose’s place in the film is undermined slightly by the limpness of their mission. Perhaps feeling there had to be some kind of Mos Eisley–esque sequence in the film, Johnson sends the pair to a casino city full of all kinds of creatures. It’s fun, sure, but the whole operation ultimately turns out to be a red herring. At least there’s some nice musing on liberation during this stretch, reminding us of the real stakes of this long story—freedom is, after all, what the Empire denies and the Rebel Alliance promises. And in a gorgeous third-act sequence—which includes the film’s true Empire Strikes Back homage—Finn and Rose finally get the emboldened moments they deserve. I just wish they fit more integrally into the central thesis of the film, that they were just as special, in their way, as Rey is, glinting with messianic power as she ascends.

Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair - Fresh

Of the three simultaneous plots, it’s Finn’s that sometimes drags down the energy, particularly with an introduction of a shady thief played by Benicio del Toro, the only new addition to the cast that doesn’t quite work; he seems to be acting in his own private movie, and it’s not as good as this one.

Will Leitch Paste Magazine - Fresh

Where the film struggles the most is on Canto Bight. Taken on her own, Rose isn’t a bad addition to the Star Wars mythos, and the movie definitely needs someone to play against Finn. Unfortunately, they lack the electric chemistry we saw between Finn and Rey in The Force Awakens, and their secret mission in a casino feels like it should be far more entertaining than it actually is.

Matt Goldberg, Collider - Fresh

Some action sequences are superfluous and unengaging. Benicio del Toro all but cameos as a sort of hobo hustler, while John Boyega’s Finn is sidelined, relegated to relatively inconsequential hi-jinx.

Alex Godfrey, GQ Magazine [UK] - Fresh

Finn (John Boyega) and newcomer Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) attempt an espionage mission that takes them to what is the Star Wars equivalent of the French Riviera. It’s a casino city named Canto Bight, and their adventures here push the Rick’s Café sensibilities from the original Star Wars’ cantina sequence to their limit. Nevertheless, this entire subplot amounts to a whole lot of padding while the real tough and revelatory decisions are made on Ahch-To.

David Crow, Den of Geek - Fresh

Plot-wise, I felt the entire side story at the casino world of Canto Bight was unnecessary. If you cut the entire sequence out of the film, it would have little impact on the core narrative.

Scott Chitwood ComingSoon.net - Fresh

Finn (John Boyega) wakes up, meets a admiring fan down in maintenance named Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) and they head off on their own adventure, a detour that somehow combines the louche slickness of Cloud City and moralizing at its most Disney.

Joe Gross, Austin American-Statesman - Fresh

But The Last Jedi’s two-and-half-hour sprawl still includes an awful lot of clunky, derivative, and largely unnecessary incidents to wade through in order to get to its maverick last act. This is especially true when it comes to the plausibility-straining mission of stormtrooper turned Rebel Alliance fighter Finn (John Boyega) and puckish series newcomer Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran).

Sam C. Mac, Slant Magazine - Rotten

There are a couple of big names that fail to deliver much aside from, perhaps, realizing their childhood dreams of being in a “Star Wars” movie. A trip to a city that might as well be called Space Macau also fails to pay many dividends.

Christopher Lawrence, Las Vegas Review-Journal - Fresh

Case in point is the plot involving Finn (John Boyega) and new hero Rose's (Kelly Marie Tran) McGuffinesque mission to Canto Bight, which is of the ashtray-on-a-speederbike variety, and takes away from the tension cranked up elsewhere.

Harry Guerin, RTÉ (Ireland) - Fresh

The remaining 20% is made up of two different locales, one of which is entirely superfluous to the story. Essentially, there is a subplot that introduces Benicio del Toro’s mysterious work of eccentricity, except it doesn’t really do much of interest with him. Admittedly, it feels as if the character could be destined for bigger things in the final chapter, but I can only go off of what I watched, and well, the middle portion of The Last Jedi is stuck in the furthest setting from lightspeed. The journey expands to a space-Vegas full of various alien life forms and inhabitants, but it’s not as visually striking as previously explored planets. Additionally, by design, there seems to be filler injected simply because the other characters need things to do while Rey accomplishes what she needs to with Luke.

Robert Kojder, Flickering Myth - Fresh

The scenes on Canto Bight seemed like an unnecessary divert for Rose (a new character I actually really like) and Finn. This “casino planet” was like a scene right out of a low-budget Sy-Fy channel movie shot in Vancouver. It felt too familiar and earthbound to be a scene in an other-worldly scene in a Star Wars movie. The Rose/Finn alien horse race through the casino that ruined the galactic one-percenters good time and did some property damage was just ridiculous and should have been cut. Rose and Finn flopping around on the alien horse just looked like a bad theme park ride.

Chris Gore, Film Threat - Fresh

There’s a lengthy diversion to the casino planet of Canto Bight that feels pointless and tacked on just for the sake of giving us a cool new corner of the galaxy to feast our eyes on.

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly - Fresh
And that's it for Part II. Happy Holidays to all my fellow fans and miners! Next week I will conclude with Part III, which will cover- well, let's just say it's the longest of this series by far. Heh.

Ok folks. Lets go over some wild syncs. As some of you know I have been looking into 666 the number of beast and man.
https://imgur.com/F3zCiRw
First I discovered the 3 distance calculations Then looked into the peculiarities of the conversion rate between meters and Nautical miles.
Then I leaned about Earths Axis. How the tilt creates seasons and Wobbles between between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. So the angle of the axis is in relation to the Sun. 23.4 degrees currently 234+432= 666 but also in the form of redundancy is 90 degrees-23.4degrees is 66.6degrees
Then I learned how the angle of the line created when you connect the Kaaba of mecca to the temple mount is the same angle of the earths axial tilt 23.4 degrees with a 66.6 degree to the equator.
Then I learned that Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
13X18 =432....... added too its mirror 234=666 As shown in the Axial 23.4 to 666 measure.
After this I thought “What is the 666th verse of the bible.
Gen 25:7 And these are the days of the years of Abraham's life which he lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen years. In seeing this and seeing not only a number but the same syntax as before, the 100s 10s and 1s places independently. 25X7= 175 which is the number of years of Abraham's life, told too us within the 666th verse.
Then while flying around on google earth I found the circular measurement tool. I learned that if you take the circle to the other side of the globe you can find the opposite side of the earth, which I then shortly learned was called an “Antipode”.
https://www.reddit.com/C_S_T/comments/8o40mt/abrahamkabbaantipodes_and_666/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=frontpage
In searching for land on the opposite sides of the earth from particular points EVERY point I put in prior too Mecca was in the ocean. Mecca's antipode was also in the ocean but only 30 miles from land. I found signs of in habitation on the island in the form of grids of trees, Sure enough in the 1966, Catholic missionary Father Victor Valleys mentioned in a letter to his bishop that he had planted 135,000 coconut trees on the islands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tematagi
I then found that 175 nuclear bombs were tested in this area. I thought that was interesting in regard to the 666th verse gen 25x7= 175 and 175 is the number in the text. Metaphorically this becomes even more interesting when you realize if heaven is residing above mecca then, the antipode of mecca's sky would be the gates of hell. Bombing the gates of hell with 1 nuke for every year of Abraham life sounds a lot like a 21 gun salute.
So to find next that Abraham and Isaac BUILT the kaaba.
http://www.light\-of\-truth.com/666/KJV.html
The 666th chapter from the end of the bible is Psalm 46..... Seeing this got me giddy as this is one of my favorite biblical quirks. It looks as if they were extra redundant about it as its the KJV of the bible has it on the 666th page. But this isn't the most incredible part.
The king James version of the bible released in 1611 “Around” William Shakespeare's 46th birthday. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE is an anagram for “HERE WAS I LIKE A PSALM”. But that isn't all.
If you look for the 46th word from the beginning you get Shake in the KJV (Totter, and tremble) are other versions words. Then you take the 46th word from the end you get Spear. This is getting stranger and stranger is it not? The more you meditate on this data the more confusing it becomes.
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/7493.htm
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/2595.htm
These are the 2 words in question from the Psalm. So you can be certain that the original text was arranged this way and translated this way. The riddle is deep as you have to ask which came first? WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR-THE ORGINAL BIBLE- THE KJV. The presence of the anagram by itself is a fun coincidence but the words shake and spear ALSO to be encoded an EXACT and Particular Psalm, one that echoes the years of Shakespeare at that time.
http://www.light-of-truth.com/Freemasonry/Bacon911.htm
Seeing this author post this on 6-6-06 linking Shakespeare to 9-11 is stark and powerful to me. As I write this it is 11:58pm 6-5-18. I wonder if I can finish before tomorrow lol.
Seeing that Obama read Psalm 46 on the 10th anniversary of 9-11 is quite chilling in the regards of the 666 position and Shakespeares/Bacons “Clue” Also chilling that there is a large body of work linking OBAMA to 666
http://www.pacificrimbible.com/books/Obama%20and%20the%20Number%206.pdf
While many will say you can torture the numbers to get what you want but you can see we aren't talking just numbers, there are many contextual and historical clues, and there is certainly a “CREATIVE” force involved. Like its just a damn good movie that we are all in.
Which leads me into the SYNCHRONICTY portion of the post.
I have been traveling down the path of the Man in Black. LOST, West-world, and The Dark Tower series in particular. I am also reading the comic book series Promethea, which I highly recommend if you are interested in the occult philosophies and kabbalah rich world of the land of imagination.
I had a peculiar Tarot card sync via 3 separate mediums.1st I got an RPG called Pillars Of Eternity 2 and I made my character and I end up sitting in front of a table with tarot cards after doing so.
2nd I got to the part in promethea where she is traveling the paths of the tree of life. In the Kabbalah the lines between the Spheres or Sephiroth are attributed to a tarot card. I finished up reading that night with the Tower card.
3rd Was the final confrontation with the Man in black where he meets with the Man and he gives Roland a tarot reading also drawing the Tower.
These 3 tarot PINGS were in the span of 15 or 16 hours.
Season 2 episode 7 came on sunday and I awoke to a message from my sync friend detailing their wild sync chain brought on by “William Blakes Augeries of Innocence” being spoken by Anthony Hopkins character. I wont detail her sync chain but its funny because when I watched the show the quote didn't really stand out as much.but my friend bringing attention to it hit me like a ton of bricks. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence Theres the poem for those interested I wont break it down but there are some startling pings in the text.
“The number of the beast is 666” is the name of a William Blake painting as a part of a series. And when I saw the link I flipped, In the movie Red Dragon Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal Lectere and he is helping to hunt down the tooth fairy. There is a scene in that movie that always stood out as damn peculiar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJZlg3jRQOw
So nice they made it TWICE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyWGjGdg7s4
Note the man opposite the red dragon is William Graham (which is common enough of a name but still.)
Hopkins and the man in black (Ed Harris) WW are also 2 men opposite from each other where one creates a puzzle and the other has to figure it out. The maze is the goal. Which means to me that the maze and the process of findings one way is the treasure there isn't ONE thing at the end.
The dark tower novel has Roland Deschain playing opposite of The man in Black, the main in black also setting the stage for rolands “awakening to the multitudes of realities” Leaving obstacles and challenges to sharpen the man like stone to blade.
http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/the_dark_tower_the_gunslinger_size.shtml
This is the ending I witnessed. Not really the end, but a explanation of the world.
>"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds by universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed.”
To See a world in a grain of sand. Looking at a single point there is yet infinitude's of complexity and creativity abound.
This is when my Sync friend said CETEACEAN STRANDING. I immediately thought of DEATHS STRANDING and also the song “do the strand” was playing when James Delos danced his little dance in west-world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2nuHEGhwiw
At 2:09 is the beached whales that pinged my memory. When I pulled up the video I almost knocked my seat over as the trailer opens with “Augeries of innocence” by WILLIAM BLAKE!!!!! the same quote that was stated by Anthony Hopkins in Westworld as well as a version quoted by the Man in Black.
Whales are divided into two main categories toothed whales and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baleen_whale
MYSTICETI or MYSTIC ETI (extra terrestrial intelligence.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism
>Mystic: a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.
>"Mysticism" is derived from the [Greek] μυω, meaning "I conceal", and its derivative μυστικός, [mystikos]
, meaning 'an initiate'. The verb μυώ has received a quite different meaning in the Greek language, where it is still in use. The primary meanings it has are "induct" and "initiate". Secondary meanings include "introduce", "make someone aware of something", "train", "familiarize", "give first experience of something"
It certainly feel like I am undergoing some form of initiation, with the universe,history and human creations to light various clues. The ETI present in the whales is funny for a multitude of reasons.
ETI. Stands for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. This is funny for a couple reasons. One is that they WERE terrestrial creatures,or rather they evolved from Land mammals and adapted the blowhole functionality. Extra Terrestrial is right lol, and intelligent, yeah they are that too.
http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS06/cs06p02.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly
John C. Lilly is a fascinating character and Cetacean scholar. But more than that hes know for his studies into consciousness and coincidence.
>Lilly was interested in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project. In 1961 a group of scientists including Lilly gathered at the Green Bank Observatory to discuss the possibility of using the techniques of radio astronomy to detect evidence of intelligent life outside the solar system. They called themselves The Order of the Dolphin after Lilly's work with dolphins. They discussed the Drake equation, used to estimate the number of communicative civilizations in our galaxy.[
>In 1974, Lilly's research using various psychoactive drugs led him to believe in the existence of a certain hierarchical group of cosmic entities, the lowest of which he later dubbed Earth Coincidence Control Office (E.C.C.O.) in an autobiography published jointly with his wife Antonietta (often called Toni). To elaborate, "There exists a Cosmic Coincidence Control Center (CCCC) with a Galactic substation called Galactic Coincidence Control (GCC). Within GCC is the Solar System Control Unit (SSCU), within which is the Earth Coincidence Control Office (ECCO).
The search for ETI's lead by “The Brotherhood of the Dolphin” coincidence control center which brings us back to bikini bottom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGdy8z7dCe4
Bubbles the one who Watches. The dolphin in charge of making sure the universe is kept straight.
I had already had a stunning synchronicity regarding death stranding which probably kept in my easily accessed memories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Hy96sOnq8
This trailer opens with Norman Reedus on the ground with a uniform on. The number on the uniform is 0914-137. the 0914 stood out synchromystically on a personal level for me as it was the first number sequence I had ever memorized (other than my grandmothers phone number) This number was the birthdate of my stepmothers father and her father passed away shortly after the wedding and they had gotten a security system for the house and coded the entry code too be 0914.
137 is another significant number as it relates to the Fine structure Constant. And the TENGRI 137 rabbit hole. 137 is also the “Main” or original universe in Rick and Morty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Hy96sOnq8
at 3:33 you meet the bad guy of deaths stranding Mads Mikelson. WHO is also HANNIBAL LECTERE.
Today I started 'The drawing of the Three” the second book in the dark tower series. It opens up with our hero on a beach with the waves lapping up at him. He ends up being chased by a “Lobstrocity” down the STRAND. I noticed the reader said STRAND 3 times on the beach scene and I looked up what it meant. That is when I learned that strand was a synonym for beach. This is how this stuff works. I experience a thing, research the thing and then experience a thing that directly references the whole process and connects it back to the other strands.
Yesterday I learned about RONALD WILSON REAGAN and the silly 666 connection because each name has 6 letters. This '”fact” is used or makes the facts im showing look similar in that its silly just because a man has 6 letters in each name that he is evil. Then I learned that RONALD moved into 666 St Cloud rd Los Angeles. They changed the address to 668 for hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia's sake.
Or rather that 666 is evil?
hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia Is the fear of the number 666. Which is intriguing as you think of the Truman show and the use of FEAR to control the TRUEMAN from awakening to the truth of his reality. They had to keep him on the island, they used his fear of dogs and had him “Lose his father” in a storm just to never get him to try again.
Then I notice the obvious ROLAND RONALD. Which is amusing in light of the William Shakespeare (here was I like a psalm) finding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William\_Blake
>When William was ten years old, his parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but instead enrolled in drawing classes at Pars's drawing school in the Strand.
Theres that STRAND once again akin to a thread of a tapestry that when you trace back to the source you can begin to see something great and complex forming.
My Sync friend says “WILLIAM BLAKESPEAR” and of course I giggled at the obviousness of it. Also to to note WILLIAM is the man in black in WW the man in BLAKe.
But there is a lot more that connects west-world to Shakespeare. As a quote from Shakespeare is the catalyst or codephrase that starts the “awakening” process for the “hosts/robots”.
These violent delights have violent ends. Is from a Romeo and juliet Scene. Peter Abernathy is the HOST with the world in his mind. All of the data of the park is contained within and needed on the outside.
http://westworld.wikia.com/wiki/Literary_references
It appears the references haven't gone under he noses of the fans of West World.
https://www.refinery29.com/2017/08/166480/westworld-dark-tower-movie-connections-time-maze
and the connections from darktower too westworld have been noticed as well.
The following Ford quote is from Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818):
"One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire." - Robert Ford (to [Bernard Lowe]
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgqOiJcRIIM)
This is Frankenstein's monster reading the same quote that Anthony Hopkins read in West-world. Just another little sync in a beautiful and fascinating web of truth. The connection from Will to Will (blake to shake) is alot more solid however.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pity_(William_Blake))
I am brought too pity when I think of Death stranding
https://www.pcgamer.com/kojima-a-baby-and-william-blake-an-attempt-to-analyze-death-stranding/
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3467/
then you have others linking The 2 Wills.
http://www.shakespearemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image1.jpeg
Here is a painting of Will to Will. So having painted a collection of Shakespeare's works shows there is some connection. So now I want to dive deeper into the Francis Bacon and Shakespeare connection and that Bacon/shakespeare/Tudor heir to throne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZdqd5El5Y4
This video shows the process of finding the cipher that Baconspeare utilized in his works. The cipher proven time and time again.and its always so elegant and metaphorically artistic. With works like this there is the content which is INCREDIBLE but the WAY in which it was found is more improbable. Seeing the word AUTHOR pop up repeatedly in the ciphers I looked up the etymology.
>Middle English (in the sense ‘a person who invents or causes something’): from Old French autor, from Latin* auctor, from augere ‘increase, originate, promote.’ The spelling with th arose in the 15th century, and perhaps became established under the influence of authenti*c .
AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE is the Blake poem that lead to these waters.
http://westworld.wikia.com/wiki/Reveries
Reveries are in opposite to augeries.
> the reveries were intended as a way of increasing the complexity and believably of a host's behavior. They work by having access to old, supposedly purged, memories from previous roles or just previous days in a host's working life. The memories are not directly available to the host but can be accessed by the reveries gesture class before the storage space assigned to the memory is overwritten.
Like augury is to seeking or divining the future. Reveries are like memories of a past life. These were perhaps the first seed of being able to break free consciously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverie_(TV_series)
This TV show comes on this evening 6-6-18. the second episode title Bond, Jane Bond. The show is about a simulation that people can enter a dreamworld of their design. But the simulation becomes too real and the people get trapped in their fantasies.
>Fidelity is the quality of faithfulness or loyalty. Its original meaning regarded duty in a broader sense than the related concept of fealty. Both derive from the Latin word fidēlis, meaning "faithful or loyal". In the City of London financial markets it has traditionally been used in the sense encompassed in the motto "My word is my bond". >In the fields of scientific modeling and simulation, fidelity refers to the degree to which a model or simulation reproduces the state and behavior of a real world object, feature or condition. Fidelity is therefore a measure of the realism of a model or simulation.[1] Simulation fidelity has also been described in the past as "degree of similarity".[2] In quantum mechanics and optics,[3] the fidelity of a field is calculated as an overlap integral of the field of interest with a reference or target field. In west-world The Human mind androids are tested for fidelity as in can they tell their mind is simulated.... Which is the opposite of REVERIE as the FIDELITY is too good and people are getting stuck in the simulation. Its quite beautiful the juxtaposition present. People choosing to be in a simulation and people realizing they are in a simulation against their will.
Speaking of Fidelity, it seems that has been breaking down rather nicely in my reality, Its so hard to write out because it just keeps accumulating but here are some of today's discoveries.
I mentioned above that I found the atoll that is close too the antipode of Mecca. I noticed the rows of coconut trees. And the wiki talked about nuclear testing going on in the area. A user commented with the idea the “Bikini Bottom” In spongebob square pants was an allusion to that island/atoll. So I look into it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll#/media/File%3AFlag_of_Bikini_Atoll.svg
The first thing I notice is this flag..... WTF is going on with this flag https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/mh-xbn.html
>The 23 white stars in the field of blue in the upper left hand corner of the flag represent the islands of Bikini Atoll. The three black stars in the upper right of the flag represent the three islands that were vaporized by the March 1, 1954, 15 megaton hydrogen bomb blast, code named Bravo. The two black stars in the lower right hand corner represent where the Bikinians live now, Kili Island, 425 miles to the south of Bikini Atoll, and Ejit Island of Majuro Atoll. These two stars are symbolically far away from Bikini's stars on the flag as the islands are in real life (both in distance and quality of life). The Marshallese words running across the bottom of the flag, "MEN OTEMJEJ REJ ILO BEIN ANIJ" [Translation: "Everything is in the hands of God."], represent the words spoken in 1946 by the Bikinian leader, Juda, to U.S. Commodore Ben Wyatt when the American went to Bikini to ask the islanders -- on a Sunday after church -- to give up their islands for the 'good of all mankind' so that the U.S. could test nuclear weapons. The close resemblance of the Bikinian's flag to the flag of the United States is to remind the people and the government of America that a great debt is still owed by them to the people of Bikini."
A very interesting story. And the metaphor of them making it look like the USA flag to shame the USA is pretty clever. But the name is what is mind blowing.
The island's English name is derived from the German colonial name Bikini given to the atoll when it was part of German New Guinea. The German name is transliterated from the Marshallese name for the island, Pikinni, ([pʲi͡ɯɡɯ͡inʲːii̯]), Pik" meaning "surface" and "Ni" meaning "coconut", or surface of coconuts.
Remember above when I found the island of coconuts that was an atoll 500 miles from the Marshall islands where the name of the land is a “Surface of Coconuts” and how that part of the world was used by France for their nuclear testing.
So what about bikinis that people wear.
>Fashion designer Jacques Heim from Paris released a two-piece swimsuit design in 1946 that he named the Atome. Like swimsuits of the era, it covered the wearer's navel, and it failed to attract much attention. Parisian automotive engineer and designer Louis Réard introduced his design soon after.[3] His skimpy design was risque, exposing the wearer's navel and much of her buttocks. No runway model would wear it, so he hired a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris to model it at a review of swimsuit fashions. He named the swimsuit after the Bikini Atoll, where the first public test of a nuclear bomb had taken place only four days before.
>In May 1946, Jacques Heim produced a two-piece swimsuit that he named the "Atome," which he advertised as the world's "smallest bathing suit".[4][5] The bottom of Heim's swimsuit was just large enough to cover the wearer's navel. To promote his new design, Heim hired skywriters to fly above the Mediterranean resort advertising the Atome as "the world’s smallest bathing suit."[6][7][8]
ATOME you mean like ATOM BOMB? Also french for ATOM. Which was the smallest thing known about by a majority of people
>Réard quickly produced his own swimsuit design which was a string bikini consisting of four triangles made from only 30 square inches (194 cm2) of fabric printed with a newspaper pattern.[2] When Réard sought a model to wear his design at its debut presentation, none of the usual models would wear the suit, so he hired 19-year-old nude dancer Micheline Bernardini[9] from the Casino de Paris to model it.[10]
>He introduced his new swimsuit, which he named the bikini, to the media and public in Paris on 5 July 1946[11] at Piscine Molitor, a popular public pool in Paris at the time.[12][13]
>He introduced his design four days after the first test of a nuclear weapon at the . The newspapers were full of news about it and Reard hoped for the same with his design.
Not to be outdone by Heim, Réard hired his own skywriters to fly over the [French Riviera](advertising his design as "smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world." Photographs of Bernardini and articles about the event were widely carried by the press. The [International Herald Tribune] alone ran nine stories on the event.
Who knew the battle for tiny swimming cloth supremacy could be so explosive. And what a peculiar reason for a naming convention from ATOME too BIKINI because we blew up atome bombs on the lands covered in coconuts...... One place by the french and the other by America.
Well folks every day that passes another dumptruck of syncs and links within the research pop up. This one has been hella entertaining for me though. Ill end this with the peak of the journey so far.
As always it starts with a search. I somehow came across this movie
(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129885/)
I had never seen this movie in all my researches into dog-star or Sirius. (of which were numerous). I asked my sync friend and they too had never seen it, both of us avidly searching.
So I google “Dogstar 1997 trailer” and what stands out like a sore thumb is this.
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIO8DSq0tNXauo8RJbzpdOYAGdU-VNrOD)
“Orion (Mighty hunteNimrod) and Sirius Dogstar OZ(iris) “ I stared at the name and the content of the playlists. Getting hit with so many pings, so many videos I had seen or mentioned in my previous posts. That was when I noticed the Link in the Playlist description.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ybf_O2QE37Y/UzMVmXsyMGI/AAAAAAAAiOg/pKcGoEdpXjQ/s1600/23+dr+sirius+leary.jpg)
I had to stand up when I saw this as earlier this month I made this!
https://imgur.com/GBwe8un
Mine is a bit convoluted as you can see but the two images He used were in the same order as mine. I could feel the frission, hairs standing on back of your neck. I saw that her had other playlists.
(https://www.youtube.com/useKyleBemmann/playlists)
Looking here you can see there are the various playlists are like archetypes or symbol groupings seen in moves music ect. So I was like has this guy posted any videos.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_URF6susdSU&t=106s)
Opens with the Smile and Frown of the Shakespearean stage. Then shows that the park was built by free-masons.
I check the date..... The video was posted 11 hours before I found it. Youtube channel in existence since 2010
http://goo.gl/Kxm8ud.
This was on his about page..... He appears to have put a large amount of work and effort into sharing. And the particular series of events in finding his channel and then realizing he just posted 8 years after he made his account and that day being 6-6....... Ive been compiling this for three days and yet there is so much more, take any thread and pull and you are sure to find something.
Keep seeking friends the answers are out there.

Wine red looks with golden Hardware and a "Licensed" Bigsby, I will review my experience with what has been my most expensive guitar so far!
The Epiphone Riviera Custom P93:
->Right out the box
I bought mine from Amazon, (I know.) Amazon and musical instruments especially handled by FedEx is best described by Ace Ventura.
Had to get it to my luthier, fret buzz and truss rod adjustment but it's winter here in Canada so I won't be too shabby about it.
->Looks and design
Anytime I pull out my 12" of Fretboard Radius and Big fat Red Wine hollow body with what can be described as Gold Plated Ornament, the only reaction you can expect is an honest wow. And yeah, that Bigsby is there to compliment the guitar but it's what makes the Riviera a jewel amongst others!
Maple body with the usual Mohagony neck. Tune-o-Matic bridge, always a preference! For me at least.
->Playability
After a week of owning it, it's my only child now, it used to be my Fender but when I look at it now it looks too simple, Epiphone turned me in a man of tastes and will now make me spend more money on a better guitar only if it looks good.
The fretboard is smooth as a babies butt, maybe the Frets are too high but it's to be considered later on if you're not comfortable with high frets, easy shave.
This hollow body isn't Arched so the sound isn't specific, I can play jazz, blues, country but I don't think about Heavy metal and Rock too much, my amp can remedy to that concern but I stick to what the guitar looks like.
Weight is to be considered because at 8.8 lbs, that thing is heavy, stand and it will hurt. Sit but find that perfect weight dispersion and you're good to go.
->Features
There are 3 P90s pickups and I enjoy playing with them and finding what suits me best every day and its smooth turns, you can turn off the middle pick up thought you can always put a switch instead of a nob! 4 nobs, one of which is the master.
Pickups are really in the way some times, you will scratch them a little or if you're fingerstyle jazz, you will hit them time to times!
->Verdict
I'm having honest fun with it, it's my only guitar at the moment, the other will take the time to learn how to sound good and I'll maybe reconsider them.
If I could I'd price up my choice but for what it can offer It's in my top 3 guitars that I've played in my life, honest recommendation and hours of fun with all the features it offers!
And anytime I play and close my eyes, I'm in a casino and I play a funky jazz line while Bobby and Jack fight over Jessica.
Thanks for reading! Have a nice one!

Ok folks. Lets go over some wild syncs. As some of you know I have been looking into 666 the number of beast and man.
https://imgur.com/F3zCiRw
First I discovered the 3 distance calculations Then looked into the peculiarities of the conversion rate between meters and Nautical miles.
Then I leaned about Earths Axis. How the tilt creates seasons and Wobbles between between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. So the angle of the axis is in relation to the Sun. 23.4 degrees currently 234+432= 666 but also in the form of redundancy is 90 degrees-23.4degrees is 66.6degrees
Then I learned how the angle of the line created when you connect the Kaaba of mecca to the temple mount is the same angle of the earths axial tilt 23.4 degrees with a 66.6 degree to the equator.
Then I learned that Rev 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
13X18 =432....... added too its mirror 234=666 As shown in the Axial 23.4 to 666 measure.
After this I thought “What is the 666th verse of the bible.
Gen 25:7 And these are the days of the years of Abraham's life which he lived, an hundred threescore and fifteen years. In seeing this and seeing not only a number but the same syntax as before, the 100s 10s and 1s places independently. 25X7= 175 which is the number of years of Abraham's life, told too us within the 666th verse.
Then while flying around on google earth I found the circular measurement tool. I learned that if you take the circle to the other side of the globe you can find the opposite side of the earth, which I then shortly learned was called an “Antipode”.
https://www.reddit.com/C_S_T/comments/8o40mt/abrahamkabbaantipodes_and_666/?utm_content=title&utm_medium=user&utm_source=reddit&utm_name=frontpage
In searching for land on the opposite sides of the earth from particular points EVERY point I put in prior too Mecca was in the ocean. Mecca's antipode was also in the ocean but only 30 miles from land. I found signs of in habitation on the island in the form of grids of trees, Sure enough in the 1966, Catholic missionary Father Victor Valleys mentioned in a letter to his bishop that he had planted 135,000 coconut trees on the islands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tematagi
I then found that 175 nuclear bombs were tested in this area. I thought that was interesting in regard to the 666th verse gen 25x7= 175 and 175 is the number in the text. Metaphorically this becomes even more interesting when you realize if heaven is residing above mecca then, the antipode of mecca's sky would be the gates of hell. Bombing the gates of hell with 1 nuke for every year of Abraham life sounds a lot like a 21 gun salute.
So to find next that Abraham and Isaac BUILT the kaaba.
http://www.light-of-truth.com/666/KJV.html
The 666th chapter from the end of the bible is Psalm 46..... Seeing this got me giddy as this is one of my favorite biblical quirks. It looks as if they were extra redundant about it as its the KJV of the bible has it on the 666th page. But this isn't the most incredible part.
The king James version of the bible released in 1611 “Around” William Shakespeare's 46th birthday. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE is an anagram for “HERE WAS I LIKE A PSALM”. But that isn't all.
If you look for the 46th word from the beginning you get Shake in the KJV (Totter, and tremble) are other versions words. Then you take the 46th word from the end you get Spear. This is getting stranger and stranger is it not? The more you meditate on this data the more confusing it becomes.
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/7493.htm
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/2595.htm
These are the 2 words in question from the Psalm. So you can be certain that the original text was arranged this way and translated this way. The riddle is deep as you have to ask which came first? WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR-THE ORGINAL BIBLE- THE KJV. The presence of the anagram by itself is a fun coincidence but the words shake and spear ALSO to be encoded an EXACT and Particular Psalm, one that echoes the years of Shakespeare at that time.
http://www.light-of-truth.com/Freemasonry/Bacon911.htm
Seeing this author post this on 6-6-06 linking Shakespeare to 9-11 is stark and powerful to me. As I write this it is 11:58pm 6-5-18. I wonder if I can finish before tomorrow lol.
Seeing that Obama read Psalm 46 on the 10th anniversary of 9-11 is quite chilling in the regards of the 666 position and Shakespeares/Bacons “Clue” Also chilling that there is a large body of work linking OBAMA to 666
http://www.pacificrimbible.com/books/Obama%20and%20the%20Number%206.pdf
While many will say you can torture the numbers to get what you want but you can see we aren't talking just numbers, there are many contextual and historical clues, and there is certainly a “CREATIVE” force involved. Like its just a damn good movie that we are all in.
Which leads me into the SYNCHRONICTY portion of the post.
I have been traveling down the path of the Man in Black. LOST, West-world, and The Dark Tower series in particular. I am also reading the comic book series Promethea, which I highly recommend if you are interested in the occult philosophies and kabbalah rich world of the land of imagination.
I had a peculiar Tarot card sync via 3 separate mediums.1st I got an RPG called Pillars Of Eternity 2 and I made my character and I end up sitting in front of a table with tarot cards after doing so.
2nd I got to the part in promethea where she is traveling the paths of the tree of life. In the Kabbalah the lines between the Spheres or Sephiroth are attributed to a tarot card. I finished up reading that night with the Tower card.
3rd Was the final confrontation with the Man in black where he meets with the Man and he gives Roland a tarot reading also drawing the Tower.
These 3 tarot PINGS were in the span of 15 or 16 hours.
Season 2 episode 7 came on sunday and I awoke to a message from my sync friend detailing their wild sync chain brought on by “William Blakes Augeries of Innocence” being spoken by Anthony Hopkins character. I wont detail her sync chain but its funny because when I watched the show the quote didn't really stand out as much.but my friend bringing attention to it hit me like a ton of bricks. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence Theres the poem for those interested I wont break it down but there are some startling pings in the text.
“The number of the beast is 666” is the name of a William Blake painting as a part of a series. And when I saw the link I flipped, In the movie Red Dragon Anthony Hopkins plays Hannibal Lectere and he is helping to hunt down the tooth fairy. There is a scene in that movie that always stood out as damn peculiar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJZlg3jRQOw
So nice they made it TWICE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyWGjGdg7s4
Note the man opposite the red dragon is William Graham (which is common enough of a name but still.)
Hopkins and the man in black (Ed Harris) WW are also 2 men opposite from each other where one creates a puzzle and the other has to figure it out. The maze is the goal. Which means to me that the maze and the process of findings one way is the treasure there isn't ONE thing at the end.
The dark tower novel has Roland Deschain playing opposite of The man in Black, the main in black also setting the stage for rolands “awakening to the multitudes of realities” Leaving obstacles and challenges to sharpen the man like stone to blade.
http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/the_dark_tower_the_gunslinger_size.shtml
This is the ending I witnessed. Not really the end, but a explanation of the world.

"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds by universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed.”

To See a world in a grain of sand. Looking at a single point there is yet infinitude's of complexity and creativity abound.
This is when my Sync friend said CETEACEAN STRANDING. I immediately thought of DEATHS STRANDING and also the song “do the strand” was playing when James Delos danced his little dance in west-world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2nuHEGhwiw
At 2:09 is the beached whales that pinged my memory. When I pulled up the video I almost knocked my seat over as the trailer opens with “Augeries of innocence” by WILLIAM BLAKE!!!!! the same quote that was stated by Anthony Hopkins in Westworld as well as a version quoted by the Man in Black.
Whales are divided into two main categories toothed whales and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baleen_whale
MYSTICETI or MYSTIC ETI (extra terrestrial intelligence.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism

Mystic: a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.
"Mysticism" is derived from the [Greek] μυω, meaning "I conceal", and its derivative μυστικός, [mystikos]

, meaning 'an initiate'. The verb μυώ has received a quite different meaning in the Greek language, where it is still in use. The primary meanings it has are "induct" and "initiate". Secondary meanings include "introduce", "make someone aware of something", "train", "familiarize", "give first experience of something"
It certainly feel like I am undergoing some form of initiation, with the universe,history and human creations to light various clues. The ETI present in the whales is funny for a multitude of reasons.
ETI. Stands for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. This is funny for a couple reasons. One is that they WERE terrestrial creatures,or rather they evolved from Land mammals and adapted the blowhole functionality. Extra Terrestrial is right lol, and intelligent, yeah they are that too.
http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS06/cs06p02.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly
John C. Lilly is a fascinating character and Cetacean scholar. But more than that hes know for his studies into consciousness and coincidence.

Lilly was interested in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project. In 1961 a group of scientists including Lilly gathered at the Green Bank Observatory to discuss the possibility of using the techniques of radio astronomy to detect evidence of intelligent life outside the solar system. They called themselves The Order of the Dolphin after Lilly's work with dolphins. They discussed the Drake equation, used to estimate the number of communicative civilizations in our galaxy.[
In 1974, Lilly's research using various psychoactive drugs led him to believe in the existence of a certain hierarchical group of cosmic entities, the lowest of which he later dubbed Earth Coincidence Control Office (E.C.C.O.) in an autobiography published jointly with his wife Antonietta (often called Toni). To elaborate, "There exists a Cosmic Coincidence Control Center (CCCC) with a Galactic substation called Galactic Coincidence Control (GCC). Within GCC is the Solar System Control Unit (SSCU), within which is the Earth Coincidence Control Office (ECCO).

The search for ETI's lead by “The Brotherhood of the Dolphin” coincidence control center which brings us back to bikini bottom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGdy8z7dCe4
Bubbles the one who Watches. The dolphin in charge of making sure the universe is kept straight.
I had already had a stunning synchronicity regarding death stranding which probably kept in my easily accessed memories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Hy96sOnq8
This trailer opens with Norman Reedus on the ground with a uniform on. The number on the uniform is 0914-137. the 0914 stood out synchromystically on a personal level for me as it was the first number sequence I had ever memorized (other than my grandmothers phone number) This number was the birthdate of my stepmothers father and her father passed away shortly after the wedding and they had gotten a security system for the house and coded the entry code too be 0914.
137 is another significant number as it relates to the Fine structure Constant. And the TENGRI 137 rabbit hole. 137 is also the “Main” or original universe in Rick and Morty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Hy96sOnq8
at 3:33 you meet the bad guy of deaths stranding Mads Mikelson. WHO is also HANNIBAL LECTERE.
Today I started 'The drawing of the Three” the second book in the dark tower series. It opens up with our hero on a beach with the waves lapping up at him. He ends up being chased by a “Lobstrocity” down the STRAND. I noticed the reader said STRAND 3 times on the beach scene and I looked up what it meant. That is when I learned that strand was a synonym for beach. This is how this stuff works. I experience a thing, research the thing and then experience a thing that directly references the whole process and connects it back to the other strands.
Yesterday I learned about RONALD WILSON REAGAN and the silly 666 connection because each name has 6 letters. This '”fact” is used or makes the facts im showing look similar in that its silly just because a man has 6 letters in each name that he is evil. Then I learned that RONALD moved into 666 St Cloud rd Los Angeles. They changed the address to 668 for hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia's sake.
Or rather that 666 is evil?
hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia Is the fear of the number 666. Which is intriguing as you think of the Truman show and the use of FEAR to control the TRUEMAN from awakening to the truth of his reality. They had to keep him on the island, they used his fear of dogs and had him “Lose his father” in a storm just to never get him to try again.
Then I notice the obvious ROLAND RONALD. Which is amusing in light of the William Shakespeare (here was I like a psalm) finding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake

When William was ten years old, his parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but instead enrolled in drawing classes at Pars's drawing school in the Strand.

Theres that STRAND once again akin to a thread of a tapestry that when you trace back to the source you can begin to see something great and complex forming.
My Sync friend says “WILLIAM BLAKESPEAR” and of course I giggled at the obviousness of it. Also to to note WILLIAM is the man in black in WW the man in BLAKe.
But there is a lot more that connects west-world to Shakespeare. As a quote from Shakespeare is the catalyst or codephrase that starts the “awakening” process for the “hosts/robots”.
These violent delights have violent ends. Is from a Romeo and juliet Scene. Peter Abernathy is the HOST with the world in his mind. All of the data of the park is contained within and needed on the outside.
http://westworld.wikia.com/wiki/Literary_references
It appears the references haven't gone under he noses of the fans of West World.
https://www.refinery29.com/2017/08/166480/westworld-dark-tower-movie-connections-time-maze
and the connections from darktower too westworld have been noticed as well.
The following Ford quote is from Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818):
"One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire." - Robert Ford (to [Bernard Lowe]
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgqOiJcRIIM)
This is Frankenstein's monster reading the same quote that Anthony Hopkins read in West-world. Just another little sync in a beautiful and fascinating web of truth. The connection from Will to Will (blake to shake) is alot more solid however.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pity_(William_Blake))
I am brought too pity when I think of Death stranding
https://www.pcgamer.com/kojima-a-baby-and-william-blake-an-attempt-to-analyze-death-stranding/
http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3467/
then you have others linking The 2 Wills.
http://www.shakespearemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/image1.jpeg
Here is a painting of Will to Will. So having painted a collection of Shakespeare's works shows there is some connection. So now I want to dive deeper into the Francis Bacon and Shakespeare connection and that Bacon/shakespeare/Tudor heir to throne.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZdqd5El5Y4
This video shows the process of finding the cipher that Baconspeare utilized in his works. The cipher proven time and time again.and its always so elegant and metaphorically artistic. With works like this there is the content which is INCREDIBLE but the WAY in which it was found is more improbable. Seeing the word AUTHOR pop up repeatedly in the ciphers I looked up the etymology.

Middle English (in the sense ‘a person who invents or causes something’): from Old French autor, from Latin* auctor, from augere ‘increase, originate, promote.’ The spelling with th arose in the 15th century, and perhaps became established under the influence of authenti*c .

AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE is the Blake poem that lead to these waters.
http://westworld.wikia.com/wiki/Reveries
Reveries are in opposite to augeries.

the reveries were intended as a way of increasing the complexity and believably of a host's behavior. They work by having access to old, supposedly purged, memories from previous roles or just previous days in a host's working life. The memories are not directly available to the host but can be accessed by the reveries gesture class before the storage space assigned to the memory is overwritten.

Like augury is to seeking or divining the future. Reveries are like memories of a past life. These were perhaps the first seed of being able to break free consciously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverie_(TV_series
This TV show comes on this evening 6-6-18. the second episode title Bond, Jane Bond. The show is about a simulation that people can enter a dreamworld of their design. But the simulation becomes too real and the people get trapped in their fantasies.

Fidelity is the quality of faithfulness or loyalty. Its original meaning regarded duty in a broader sense than the related concept of fealty. Both derive from the Latin word fidēlis, meaning "faithful or loyal". In the City of London financial markets it has traditionally been used in the sense encompassed in the motto "My word is my bond". >In the fields of scientific modeling and simulation, fidelity refers to the degree to which a model or simulation reproduces the state and behavior of a real world object, feature or condition. Fidelity is therefore a measure of the realism of a model or simulation.[1] Simulation fidelity has also been described in the past as "degree of similarity".[2] In quantum mechanics and optics,[3] the fidelity of a field is calculated as an overlap integral of the field of interest with a reference or target field. In west-world The Human mind androids are tested for fidelity as in can they tell their mind is simulated.... Which is the opposite of REVERIE as the FIDELITY is too good and people are getting stuck in the simulation. Its quite beautiful the juxtaposition present. People choosing to be in a simulation and people realizing they are in a simulation against their will.

Speaking of Fidelity, it seems that has been breaking down rather nicely in my reality, Its so hard to write out because it just keeps accumulating but here are some of today's discoveries.
I mentioned above that I found the atoll that is close too the antipode of Mecca. I noticed the rows of coconut trees. And the wiki talked about nuclear testing going on in the area. A user commented with the idea the “Bikini Bottom” In spongebob square pants was an allusion to that island/atoll. So I look into it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll#/media/File%3AFlag_of_Bikini_Atoll.svg
The first thing I notice is this flag..... WTF is going on with this flag https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/mh-xbn.html

The 23 white stars in the field of blue in the upper left hand corner of the flag represent the islands of Bikini Atoll. The three black stars in the upper right of the flag represent the three islands that were vaporized by the March 1, 1954, 15 megaton hydrogen bomb blast, code named Bravo. The two black stars in the lower right hand corner represent where the Bikinians live now, Kili Island, 425 miles to the south of Bikini Atoll, and Ejit Island of Majuro Atoll. These two stars are symbolically far away from Bikini's stars on the flag as the islands are in real life (both in distance and quality of life). The Marshallese words running across the bottom of the flag, "MEN OTEMJEJ REJ ILO BEIN ANIJ" [Translation: "Everything is in the hands of God."], represent the words spoken in 1946 by the Bikinian leader, Juda, to U.S. Commodore Ben Wyatt when the American went to Bikini to ask the islanders -- on a Sunday after church -- to give up their islands for the 'good of all mankind' so that the U.S. could test nuclear weapons. The close resemblance of the Bikinian's flag to the flag of the United States is to remind the people and the government of America that a great debt is still owed by them to the people of Bikini."

A very interesting story. And the metaphor of them making it look like the USA flag to shame the USA is pretty clever. But the name is what is mind blowing.
The island's English name is derived from the German colonial name Bikini given to the atoll when it was part of German New Guinea. The German name is transliterated from the Marshallese name for the island, Pikinni, ([pʲi͡ɯɡɯ͡inʲːii̯]), Pik" meaning "surface" and "Ni" meaning "coconut", or surface of coconuts.
Remember above when I found the island of coconuts that was an atoll 500 miles from the Marshall islands where the name of the land is a “Surface of Coconuts” and how that part of the world was used by France for their nuclear testing.
So what about bikinis that people wear.

Fashion designer Jacques Heim from Paris released a two-piece swimsuit design in 1946 that he named the Atome. Like swimsuits of the era, it covered the wearer's navel, and it failed to attract much attention. Parisian automotive engineer and designer Louis Réard introduced his design soon after.[3] His skimpy design was risque, exposing the wearer's navel and much of her buttocks. No runway model would wear it, so he hired a nude dancer from the Casino de Paris to model it at a review of swimsuit fashions. He named the swimsuit after the Bikini Atoll, where the first public test of a nuclear bomb had taken place only four days before.
In May 1946, Jacques Heim produced a two-piece swimsuit that he named the "Atome," which he advertised as the world's "smallest bathing suit".[4][5] The bottom of Heim's swimsuit was just large enough to cover the wearer's navel. To promote his new design, Heim hired skywriters to fly above the Mediterranean resort advertising the Atome as "the world’s smallest bathing suit."[6][7][8]

ATOME you mean like ATOM BOMB? Also french for ATOM. Which was the smallest thing known about by a majority of people

Réard quickly produced his own swimsuit design which was a string bikini consisting of four triangles made from only 30 square inches (194 cm2) of fabric printed with a newspaper pattern.[2] When Réard sought a model to wear his design at its debut presentation, none of the usual models would wear the suit, so he hired 19-year-old nude dancer Micheline Bernardini[9] from the Casino de Paris to model it.[10]
He introduced his new swimsuit, which he named the bikini, to the media and public in Paris on 5 July 1946[11] at Piscine Molitor, a popular public pool in Paris at the time.[12][13]
He introduced his design four days after the first test of a nuclear weapon at the . The newspapers were full of news about it and Reard hoped for the same with his design.

Not to be outdone by Heim, Réard hired his own skywriters to fly over the [French Riviera](advertising his design as "smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world." Photographs of Bernardini and articles about the event were widely carried by the press. The [International Herald Tribune] alone ran nine stories on the event.
Who knew the battle for tiny swimming cloth supremacy could be so explosive. And what a peculiar reason for a naming convention from ATOME too BIKINI because we blew up atome bombs on the lands covered in coconuts...... One place by the french and the other by America.
Well folks every day that passes another dumptruck of syncs and links within the research pop up. This one has been hella entertaining for me though. Ill end this with the peak of the journey so far.
As always it starts with a search. I somehow came across this movie
(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129885/)
I had never seen this movie in all my researches into dog-star or Sirius. (of which were numerous). I asked my sync friend and they too had never seen it, both of us avidly searching.
So I google “Dogstar 1997 trailer” and what stands out like a sore thumb is this.
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIO8DSq0tNXauo8RJbzpdOYAGdU-VNrOD)
“Orion (Mighty hunteNimrod) and Sirius Dogstar OZ(iris) “ I stared at the name and the content of the playlists. Getting hit with so many pings, so many videos I had seen or mentioned in my previous posts. That was when I noticed the Link in the Playlist description.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ybf_O2QE37Y/UzMVmXsyMGI/AAAAAAAAiOg/pKcGoEdpXjQ/s1600/23+dr+sirius+leary.jpg)
I had to stand up when I saw this as earlier this month I made this!
https://imgur.com/GBwe8un
Mine is a bit convoluted as you can see but the two images He used were in the same order as mine. I could feel the frission, hairs standing on back of your neck. I saw that her had other playlists.
(https://www.youtube.com/useKyleBemmann/playlists)
Looking here you can see there are the various playlists are like archetypes or symbol groupings seen in moves music ect. So I was like has this guy posted any videos.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_URF6susdSU&t=106s)
Opens with the Smile and Frown of the Shakespearean stage. Then shows that the park was built by free-masons.
I check the date..... The video was posted 11 hours before I found it. Youtube channel in existence since 2010
http://goo.gl/Kxm8ud.
This was on his about page..... He appears to have put a large amount of work and effort into sharing. And the particular series of events in finding his channel and then realizing he just posted 8 years after he made his account and that day being 6-6....... Ive been compiling this for three days and yet there is so much more, take any thread and pull and you are sure to find something.
Keep seeking friends the answers are out there.

Opinions A history of Donald Trump’s business dealings in Russia By David Ignatius Opinion writer November 2
President Trump takes questions from reporters before boarding Marine One (Drew AngereGetty Images)
MOSCOW — An ice-blue 14-story office tower called Ducat Place III is the building that President Trump might have constructed here, with help from a business friend named Howard Lorber who came with him to scout the market in 1996. But like so many other Trump adventures in Russia, this one proved a tantalizing but futile dead end.
Trump is angrily dismissive when questions are raised about his Russian contacts. He calls the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III a “witch hunt” and media reports about his Russia connections “fake news” and “fabrication.” He tweeted in January, shortly before his inauguration: “I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA — NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”
As the Mueller investigation accelerated this week with the indictment of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the plea deal reached with former campaign foreign-policy aide George Papadopoulos, the context of the probe becomes newly important. How did Trump accumulate his network of Russian business contacts in the years before the 2016 campaign? What’s the prehistory of Trump and Russia?
Read These Comments
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The Mueller investigation is still in its opening round, and it’s far too early to make any judgments about Trump’s own actions. A member of Trump’s inner circle told me that he advised the president recently, “This is the most innocent you’ve ever been of any allegation.” But to reach a judgment, you first must understand the history of Trump’s fascination, bordering on obsession, with Russian business deals.
The simple truth is that Trump has been hungry for Russia projects for more than three decades. He has repeatedly touted plans for a Moscow mega-development and has courted a steady stream of investors from the former Soviet Union for ventures in New York, South Florida and other locations. Trump has enjoyed playing the “big guy” in Moscow. As he bragged to a New York real-estate publication after a November 2013 dinner with prominent business leaders: “The Russian market is attracted to me.”
Trump’s Russia connections helped sow the seeds of Mueller’s investigation. The best example is the now-famous June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower organized by Donald Trump Jr. with Russians who had links with the Kremlin. Mueller is investigating whether that meeting was part of a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election. But any potential criminal issues aside, the gathering embodied the Trump family’s 30-year involvement with wealthy tycoons from the former Soviet Union.
What follows is an attempt to explain Trump’s encounter with Russia as a narrative. Most of the details have surfaced before, but it has been hard to see the story whole, as a business saga. With Russia, as with so many other aspects of Trump’s business and political life, he has been more pitchman than builder. What’s clear, reviewing the facts, is that Trump’s claim he had “nothing to do with Russia” over the years is nonsense. 3:06 Inside the plan to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow
The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig and Tom Hamburger explain the Trump Organization's efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. (Jenny Starrs, Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
Trump’s business interest in Russia began in 1986. The flashy young tycoon met Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin at a luncheon and, as he recounted in his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal,” the two began “talking about building a large luxury hotel across the street from the Kremlin.”
With Dubinin’s encouragement, Trump flew to Moscow in July 1987 with his Czech-born first wife, Ivana, to check out potential sites. Trump wrote in his book: “It was an extraordinary experience. . . . We stayed in Lenin’s suite at the National Hotel, and I was impressed with the ambition of the Soviet officials to make a deal.”
But Trump was preoccupied with other business projects in the late 1980s, including buying an airline and the Plaza Hotel (which he lost after bankruptcies in 1991 and 1992, respectively), and the Russia hotel deal stalled.
Trump explored the Russian market again in 1996, with help from his friend Lorber, who is chief executive of Vector Group, a holding company that back then owned a Russian cigarette company and now owns Douglas Elliman Realty, one of the leading brokerage firms for super-rich Russians seeking property in the United States.
Lorber is a fascinating, little-noted member of Trump’s inner circle. Trump described him last year as one of his two closest friends; they’ve helped each other’s children in business, and Lorber introduced Trump to David Friedman, who is now U.S. ambassador to Israel; Friedman’s former partner, Marc Kasowitz, became Trump’s lawyer. Lorber even made a cameo appearance in a 2005 episode of “The Apprentice.”
The Trump-Lorber foray in Moscow began with Lorber’s business partner (and close Trump friend) Bennett LeBow, who had acquired the Liggett tobacco company in 1986. One subsidiary, called Liggett-Ducat, marketed the company’s cigarettes in Russia. And Liggett-Ducat had a 98-year lease on a prime development site in central Moscow.
With his usual panache, Trump announced plans for a $250 million investment that would include a “Trump International” complex on the Liggett-Ducat site at a November 1996 news conference in Moscow. “We have an understanding we will be doing it,” he said.
Trump bragged about his plans in January 1997, when he and Lorber met visiting Russian politician Aleksandr Lebed in New York. A 1997 New Yorker profile of Trump captured their exchange and showed the breadth of Trump’s hopes for Moscow investment and business connections.
“We are actually looking at something in Moscow right now, and it would be skyscrapers and hotels, not casinos. Only quality stuff. . . . And we’re working with the local government, the mayor of Moscow, and the mayor’s people. So far, they’ve been very responsive. . . . I always go into the center.”
The Moscow mayor Trump cultivated was Yuri Luzhkov. John Beyrle, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, offered this blunt summary of Luzhkov’s approach in a 2010 cable to Washington: “Corruption in Moscow remains pervasive with Mayor Luzhkov at the top of the pyramid. Luzhkov oversees a system in which it appears that almost everyone at every level is involved in some form of corruption or criminal behavior.” Beyrle’s cable was published by WikiLeaks.
Whatever inside track Trump thought he had with Luzhkov in 1996, the deal petered out. Trump’s business troubles were mounting at home, and financing may not have been available. Handsome towers were built at sites called Ducat Place II and III, but not by Trump.
The Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles. (Angel Valentin/for The Washington Post)
The Russian moneymaker for Trump in the 2000s turned out, instead, to be investment in U.S. properties bearing his name. Russians were eager to move their capital into fancy condo apartments in New York and Florida. Here, again, his friend Lorber was well connected.
Lorber’s real-estate firm Douglas Elliman, hoping to profit from the Russian market, hired a string of Russian-speaking agents who could help rich clients find high-end properties.
“If you didn’t target the Russian billionaires, then you shouldn’t be in the business,” said Dolly Lenz, a former Douglas Elliman broker, in a 2008 article in the New York Observer. Lenz told USA Today last year that she had sold about 65 apartments in Manhattan’s Trump World Tower to Russian buyers. “They all wanted to meet Donald,” she said.
One magnet for Russian money was a private resort called Fisher Island in Biscayne Bay, just off Miami. Lorber has been a director of the Oceanside at Fisher Island Condominium Association since 2000 and is currently a director of the Fisher Island Club.
Among Fisher Island’s many Soviet-born property owners have been Aras Agalarov, a Russian-Azerbaijani magnate who sponsored Trump’s Miss Universe 2013 pageant and whose pop-singer son Emin organized the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born former adviser to Trump who worked with the Bayrock Group that helped develop the Trump SoHo project in New York.
(Lorber declined to comment through Vector’s public-affairs consultant, Emily Claffey of Sard Verbinnen & Co.)
Trump’s business deals in South Florida illustrated his blend of panache and caution, his hunger for Russian cash and his ability to skirt disaster. He sold his name to condo projects in an area called Sunny Isles Beach, helped pump up the market there and walked away unscathed when it crashed.
“The city has earned the nickname ‘Little Russia’ for its high percentage of Russian-speaking residents,” notes the Douglas Elliman website, pitching high-rises there to prospective buyers. The Miami Herald reported that according to U.S. Census data, nine percent of Sunny Isles Beach households have Russian origins, the largest percentage of Russians in Miami-Dade County.
Sunny Isles is a case study in how Trump does business. It was once a decidedly un-chic beachfront north of Miami, “a place where your uncle who lives on Social Security would go on vacation,” says Peter Zalewski, a Florida real-estate consultant. But after it incorporated as a separate jurisdiction within Miami-Dade County, with business-friendly local managers, it became a magnet for investment — and was rebranded as “Florida’s Riviera.”
Trump’s name graces a string of sleek buildings along this strip of coast. First was the Trump International Beach Resort, a complex completed in 2004. Then came Trump Palace in 2006; Trump Towers I, II and III, built in 2007, 2008 and 2009; and Trump Royale in 2008. But Trump’s developer friends plunged into Sunny Isles at the wrong time. According to a 2010 article at SouthFloridaCondos.blogspot.com, unit prices at the three Trump Towers buildings dropped nearly 40 percent from the 2005 pre sales period. As the market crashed, the construction loan for Trump Towers had to be restructured. Trump Hollywood, another glitzy project further north, was driven into foreclosure in 2010.
Trump deftly distanced himself from the developers’ troubles, telling the Sun-Sentinel that he questioned their “timing.” But the condo market gradually improved, thanks in part to Russian buyers. A Reuters investigation found that 63 people with Russian addresses or passports have purchased $98.4 million of property in Trump-branded condos in South Florida.
Trump also had a personal infusion of Russian cash in the liquidity-starved 2008 market. That year he sold for a handsome $95 million a Palm Beach waterfront mansion he bought at auction in 2004 for just $41.35 million — more than doubling his money at a time when much of the South Florida market was underwater. The buyer was Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Dezer Development, the real-estate company that helped attach Trump’s name to six projects in Sunny Isles Beach, saw Trump’s presidential campaign as a promotion opportunity. “It’s a free press release,” Gil Dezer told Bloomberg News in August 2016.
Donald Trump Jr. arrives at Trump Tower in New York City. (Stephanie Keith/Reuters)
Helping build the Trump-Russia pipeline in the fragile 2008 market was Donald Trump Jr. He was a keynote speaker at the June 2008 Russian Real Estate Summit in Moscow, where he touted the Trump Organization’s plans to build condos and hotels in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi. At a New York real-estate conference in September 2008, Trump Jr. was frank about the tide of Russian money supporting the family business.
“In terms of high-end product influx into the U.S., Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. . . . We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” said the young Trump, according to a Sept. 15, 2008, article about the conference. He said he had made a half-dozen trips to Russia during the previous 18 months.
A project that had significant financing from former Soviet Union investors was Trump SoHo, a 46-story condo-hotel project in Lower Manhattan that opened in September 2007. One development partner was the Sapir Organization, founded by Tamir Sapir from Georgia. Another partner was Bayrock, founded by Tevfik Arif, a Kazakh-born businessman who brought in Sater. As has been widely reported, Sater went to prison in 1993 after stabbing a man, and later became an FBI informant.
For the elder Trump, these ex-Soviet investors were important assets for the future. He said in a deposition in a Trump SoHo lawsuit: “Bayrock knew the people, knew the investors. . . . And this was going to be Trump International Hotel and Tower Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, etc., Poland, Warsaw.”
Trump Jr. continued traveling to Russia and Eastern Europe, prospecting for business. He was interviewed in May 2012 before giving a speech to a real-estate conference in Riga, Latvia. His comments, captured on YouTube, explain why the Trump Organization saw the former Eastern Bloc as crucial: “It’s a part of the world that now you’re starting to see some amazing architecture, some incredible real estate, you’re seeing a real big boom in wealth. . . . We have something that’s very relevant in that sector.”
Russian businessman Aras Agalarov, Miss Universe 2013 Gabriela Isler and Donald Trumpat the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, Russia. (Irina BujoAP)
The apex of Trump’s personal fascination with Russia may have been 2013, when he brought the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow and talked, yet again, of building a “Trump Tower” there. His business partner in the pageant was Aras Agalarov, president of Crocus Group, a shopping-mall developer. Forbes magazine notes that he has been called “the Trump of Russia” because of his glitzy personal marketing.
Trump and Agalarov formed an ebullient partnership over a dinner in Las Vegas on June 15, 2013, captured on the Internet. As Trump began hyping the pageant, he even tried to draw in Russia’s president himself, tweeting on June 18, 2013: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow — if so, will he become my new best friend?”
The Miss Universe red carpet was rolled out Nov. 9, 2013. Emin Agalarov sang a song, and Miss Venezuela was crowned the winner. A story published that day by RT touted Trump’s latest business plans for Russia, quoting him: “I have plans for the establishment of business in Russia. Now, I am in talks with several Russian companies to establish this skyscraper.” Aras Agalarov was quoted saying he was participating in talks to be Trump’s partner in the project.
Agalarov hosted a dinner for Trump at the Moscow branch of Nobu, which he owned. The co-host was Herman Gref, the chief executive of Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, and a close adviser of President Vladimir Putin. An ebullient Trump saluted Agalarov in a Nov. 11 tweet: “I had a great weekend with you and your family. You have done a FANTASTIC job. TRUMP TOWER-MOSCOW is next.”
The Trump-Agalarov contacts continued. Trump’s daughter Ivanka visited Moscow in February 2014 and toured Crocus City Hall. Emin Agalarov performed at a golf tournament the next month at the Trump National Doral, near the family property at Fisher Island. Like so many seemingly imminent Trump-Moscow deals over the years, the skyscraper plan stalled. 4:17 What we know about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting
Here's what we know so far about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer during his father's presidential campaign in June 2016. (Video: Elyse Samuels, Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
And then, finally, came an event that Mueller is said to have examined carefully — the meeting in June 2016 where Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya met with Trump’s inner circle. It helps to recall the long history of Trump’s business dealings with Russia when you read this June 3, 2016, email to Trump Jr. from Rob Goldstone, the publicist for Emin Agalarov:
“Emin just called me to contact you with something very interesting. The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high-level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Trump — helped along by Aras and Emin.”
To which Trump Jr. answered: “I love it.” The meeting took place on June 9 with, among others, Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Manafort and Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with links to the Kremlin. Veselnitskaya says her real goal was to lobby the Trump team to oppose the Magnitsky Act, which she described in a May 31, 2016, memo as “the beginning of a new round of the Cold War,” echoing Putin’s line.
As the new president was taking office, the Trump brand sparkled brighter than ever for Russians. The Miami Herald reported on Jan. 30 that in November 2016, Russians topped the list of foreigners looking for homes in the Miami area.
Oren Alexander, one of the top brokers at Douglas Elliman, explained the post-election trend to the Herald: “There’s no doubt that Russian buyers think America is a good place to be again.” Among the places that attracted Russian purchasers, he said, were Sunny Isles Beach and Fisher Island.
Mueller’s investigation might tell us whether any of these Trump-Russian business connections improperly melded into the 2016 campaign. But at the core of Trump’s interaction with his Russian friends is an insight they have shared ever since Soviet days: Politics may be transitory, but real estate is forever.
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