I'm inclined to favor the finished film where the focus is more on the aliens than the clone simply because THE ALIENS are the thing we are here to see. I also think it makes more sense that Elio would be the one who believes in aliens, not his aunt/mother because they're just a thing that kids would be more willing to entertain, but I'm also kinda curious to see how they would pull off a scenario where the adult is the one who starts out believing in the supernatural and it's the kid who needs convincing.
Anyways, it does seem like I am the only one, at least on this forum, who genuinely loved this movie.

The fallout with Molina is sad, yes, though I also think that some commentators are having a little too much fun with its failure and trying to leverage it for unrelated purposes. The queer subtext really sounds like SUB-text, not anything more or less than we hadn't already seen from Disney, so there's a cap to how much energy I can expend being upset over it.