Very similarly to Andor, which I’ve also done this for, Arcane was released as arcs. Of the 18 episodes across two nine-episode seasons, you’ve got five three-episode arcs, followed by one kind of flashbacky standaloney one, then a duology. But I reckon there’s a nice little bit of polish there you could do to have them all balance out.
I wouldn’t cut a single piece of content - only reorder it for easier consumption.
The arcs are very solidly single units of story, with one minor exception:
So obviously for most of those they could be easily moviefied - keep the first instance of opening credits, make sure the closing credits cover all relevant content from the full three episodes, and the odd bit of smoothing round the episode breakpoints (light scene juggling if it helps).
As for episode 16, you’ve got two main plotlines: Ekko and Heimerdinger in the no-hextech universe in the past, and Jayce in the wild magic universe in the future. It would perhaps have been nice to split these out - having Ekko’s scenes saved for the finale where they’re most relevant, and Jayce’s scenes preceding his appearance at the end of episode 14. But there are some key points where, whilst not overlapping, these two episodes are quite tightly wound together by editing choices (with a few scenes in parallel tied to the same music choices). Even if they can’t be unpicked, having the scenes in Ekko’s world with Vander would nicely pair with arc 5’s reveal that the Singed’s beast is Vander.
That would make for a slightly longer movie 5, and a slightly shorter movie 6. However, the scenes of Mel in the Black Rose prison from arc 5 aren’t relevant to that arc, so could be moved to the beginning of arc 6. This is about seven minutes long, and the very final episode is also ten minutes longer than usual, so this would bring us closer to balance.
I don’t think we’d need to specifically force balanced viewing times, but potentially some of the end of arc 5 could be shifted into the beginning of arc 6 - you could end arc 5 on Jayce blasting Viktor, and open arc 6 with the fighting in the sanctuary, as the beginning of the Noxian war. There’s a nice breakpoint where Viktor’s been shot, the sanctuary residents start screaming, and then Ambessa gives the order to charge. Then you could open on the actual fight, which is covered by a Viktor voiceover, so could work as an opening. This wouldn’t be too different from how the ending of season one (Jynx firing the rocket at the Council chamber) transitions right into the start of season two (a montage of the damage and survivors). But balancing for time probably isn’t strictly necessary, and perhaps it’s best we see the fight and Isha killing Vander-beast in the episode which sets it up - though these two arcs are fairly back-to-back anyway.
Is there any interest in this?
I’d certainly be interested to see an edit like this. I’m still working through Season 2 (so late to the party), but it’s very clear where each arc starts and stops. Having them broken out into individual arcs as a seamless package would be a nice alternative to just binging the series in order.
That’d be interesting to see. S2 definitely could benefit with some restructure of its plotline for some better flow.
The big thing I’d cut is a scene in the ending of S1- Jinx sitting on the ‘Jinx chair’ after she kills Silco. This felt like a resolution to her whole is she powder or is she Jinx character arc but S2 decides to ignore this. Cutting that one part of the scene just makes the transition to her character arc in S2 flow more naturally.
For S2 one thing that never got brought up again for Ekko’s story was the whole thing about the tree slowly dying or something because of the Hex, maybe a final shot during the ending montage of the tree looking healthy could provide some resolution for this. Also Ekko and firelights not doing much after Silco’s death to liberate Zaun felt weird so perhaps moving Ekko’s disappearance earlier can help with this.
I also think adding in some shots of the Arcane Noxus trailer for S2s ending would also be ideal to provide a stronger resolution for the black rose plotline and gives Mel a resolution.