spoilers ahead I felt like the character conflict arcs were contrived and ultimately the idea of learning a language makes you a pre-cog fell flat for me. In science fiction, the big idea goes ‘woo!’ or the characters go ‘woo!’ but in the case of Arrival, nothing really went ‘woo!’
But maybe I’m wrong - what was I missing about Arrival?
Interestingly enough the short story on which Arrival is based on, Story of Your Life, goes a bit into this. I’m not going to spoil it because it’s super cool.