I would sit down and watch the whole sequence two or three times, and take notes either in a word doc or on a piece paper. Write out what problems this sequence has exactly. That gives you the questions, “how can I tone down this or that element of the story?”. Find what moments add to those elements and cut them out. While I do think you could possibly cut the whole Canto Bight sequence time to half, I just think it would be hard for it not to feel like something has obviously been cut if you remove entire portions of the sequence. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think you would have to bend over backwards just to make it work without the Fathier chase.

I thought natedug’s take on the Fathier chase was interesting, where he cut from the boy realizing what they want to do, to the cup of tea rattling on the table in the street. It would remove a huge chunk of the chase but still keep important elements of the story, (the slave children, how they ended up on a different ship, etc.). There might be an alternative way to trim throughout from beginning to end of the chase though as well. Like just show a portion of them running on the racetrack, then cut to the shot of them breaking through the window, etc. etc.)

There have been a lot of interesting ideas but I think you could provide an interesting take on the sequence.

Saying that, maybe you should try to cut the Fathier chase and see if you’re happy with it. Maybe you can make it work! But for me, sometimes you just have to try something and see if it works for you or not. And if doesn’t, at least you’ll know.