Time Capsule Restore stuck on "Loading Backup"

This is an answer, not a question, which I am adding since I also experienced the frustrations of several other users who could not restore the more recent of two backups of MacBook Pros from Time Capsule (2013 802.11 ac) using Migration Assistant and did not see a coherent answer.

In brief, the issue was that 2 backups would show in the Migration Assistant dialog (I had two user profiles backed up, one from 2017 and one current) but the newer backup would hang indefinitely with the "Loading Backup" message with a grayed out option and would not initialize. The newer backup is approximately 500 GB on a 2T Time Capsule. Apple Care by phone said it could take a few hours. A few hours later, no progress was made and I could not initialize the restore.

The solution I found was to reboot the target Macbook Pro in Recovery mode (Option + R on restart) and connect the Macbook Pro (mid 2015) by hard wired thunderbolt/ethernet cable connected directly to the Time Capsule. This enabled me to initialize the restore of the newer backup, estimated at 5 hours.

Hope this helps someone out there who also scoured these forums for a solution.