I swear if no one said “subvert expectations” before this movie came out, no one would think the movie was actively trying to do that. It at the very least wouldn’t be The Buzzword for TLJ criticism. Take everything in the film at face value - not in conversation about director’s intent - and there’s not a whole lot about it that plays with conventions as much as people like to say it does.

Pulling the rug out from under people only to pull it back in is the kind of pretentious thing the film gets accused of. I don’t see how that would fix the issues people are dead set on wanting it to have.**

**not that the film doesn’t have real problems