Breaking down Arcane's greatest fight scene

Listen, I'm not saying that there aren't amazing fights in Arcane. Arcane is this bizarre rare thing where you could pause, randomly, during practically every episode and find yourself with frame worthy art. Even outside of the fight scenes. The show manages, despite being filled with fights, having standout fight scenes that have been built up so much that they become straight up endorphin rushes. It's nerd edging at it's finest. Like, I could watch Vi kick ass all day but when she gets her signature gauntlets I almost fucking fainted.

Now, here's the part that really gets me though. I went to college for creative writing for entertainment, and while, like most degrees from Full Sail University, it bears fruit as often as a lemon tree in a tundra, it did give me a heavy appreciation for things like story boarding and this particular fight that I wanna break down is a straight up masterpiece in story boarding. To get into this, note that there's gonna be spoilers so...*clears throat*

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HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

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So the scene I wanted to talk about is in Season 2, Episode 2 titled "Watch it all burn" we have a scene where Smeech, a cat like crime lord who is a stone's throw away from being the Rick and Morty character Squanchy, has Jinx trapped in an alley with the help of his goons.

Suddenly, Sevika shows up, Jinx presents her with a new cyborg arm that is VERY Jinx in design, and proceeds to kick all sorts of ass whilst learning her new slot machine based arm.

Now, please note. For the sake of this fight I'm talking about this fight and its story boarding in a bubble. If you look at it in the big picture this fight doesn't really fit well in the story because it makes the new arm look cool and fun and unpredictable in a way the show never does again so, to me, this fight is practically the equivalent of an older League of Legends music video.

If you need to see it again, here's the fight by itself.

Let's break it down.

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0:00 - 0:13: These moments at the very beginning set the rules for the fight even if you don't catch it. Sevika's bullet gets shredded midflight by Smeech's spinning blade. The shrapnel from the bullet flies past Smeech and almost dings two of his own men in the face, narrowly missing. Smeech laughs at the failed attempt not even realizing he almost killed two of his men. From here on in, this IMMEDIATELY sets a ground rule that the fight is one-v-one betwixt Sevika and Smeech and the goon squad is an afterthought. It's one of the cleanest, most rapid setting of ground rules I've seen in a chaotic fight scene.

0:14 - 0:27: Jinx, who is easily the person most people came to Arcane for (admit it, you're basic and that's fine), slides into action. But instead of doing the fighting, she uses her moment of freedom to throw Sevika her new gift. She throws it high in the air allowing us to get a slow motion, close-to-the-camera, reveal of the new arm so we can see the complications and the graffiti and just kinda see what we're going to be playing with. As Sevika grabs it, Jinx rapidfires button holes up the middle of a goon in one of the coldest, effortless, executions I've ever seen. Not only does this look cool, but it lets us, the viewer, know that in this fight we don't need to worry about the goons. Jinx will handle them. Again, rule establishment. The fact that she doesn't even look at the goons lets us know they're nothing we should be worried about and won't interfere with the main fight.

0:28 - 0:37: Once Sevika slaps on her new arm we get to see in warm up. Here's something really important to notice. While we get to see the pipes blow smoke, the numbers spinning, the slot machine gearing up, the claw being almost out of control pulling against her, notice the focus of the camera. With the exception of the scrolling close up along the arm showing the various bells and whistles activating, the majority of this moment is on Sevika. This scene shows her confident, in control of the chaos, and while the arm looks powerful, Sevika looks invincible. It's a huge show of respect for the character. She then shares a silent, subtle look with Jinx that is the quietest "thanks/welcome" wordless exchange I think I've ever seen animated. And it leads brilliantly to the next beat.

0:38 - 0:51: As a goon fights Jinx, she slips on some of the food Smeech had been sloppily eating earlier. The fight lets us know that it's the main reason the goon is able to get the upper hand on her. Because even as she moves, we're reminded of her superhuman agility in the subtle light trails emitting from her eyes as she dodges the blows. From her facial expression though we can see that she's having a hard time catching her footing after the slip though making the next moment, where the paint grenade comes flying in, all the more special because this is a case of a toy saving Jinx which is a VERY Jinx way out.

Also, remember how I said you could pause whenever and have art? I just wanna take a quick second and show you all the frame at 0:51. The screen is practically filled with explosion, there is no need for excessive detail as you wouldn't even notice the level of detail unless paused, but somehow it still looks like this.

Notice how in this moment of absolute chaos, not only is that the thing that makes the guy who has been in control of the fight cower, but Jinx, who has been struggling, is suddenly in the blast calm and collected. She thrives in the chaos as if it makes her stronger. Brilliant.

0:52 - 1:08: In the next moment, as the colored smoke or paint or whatever clears, we have the moment where the goon realizes he's okay followed IMMEDIATELY by the sound of a gun cocking and him realizing he absolutely isn't. It is an absolute roller coaster of emotions going over this characters face in a manner of seconds. We then do a GORGEOUS close up of Jinx's face as she looks at the man's head for a LONG beat, thinking about the moment, before she pulls the trigger. We then realize that the grenade was thrown by Isha who was hiding behind a pipe. Isha gives Jinx the kind of look that, as a parent, I fully recognize as the look of a kid who knows they were caught but isn't sure they're in trouble. Jinx's finger gun and Isha's smirk is a calm moment beautifully juxtapositioned within the insanity of this fight. This is a cute moment that completely covers the fact that this child just watched a man's head pop open and it works so damn well.

1:09 - 1:18: It's in this moment that Smeech seemingly realizes his goons (save for his accountant) are dead and goes from enjoying things to becoming more aggressive in his attacks. It's important to note that, again something I never noticed until I paused, that no matter how he is positioned, Smeech is ALWAYS maintaining angry eye contact with Sevika. He is not watching his surroundings, he only sees her. Here's a frame from 1:13 as an example.

And of course, this also causes him to lodge his stabbing spike into a brick wall getting it stuck which gives a visibly worn Sevika enough time to catch her breath and notice Jinx's signal.

1:19 - 1:30: This particular beat is short but goddamn is it impactful. In an absolutely beautifully rendered moment, Jinx, now calmly chilling off to the side with Isha, gives Sevika the signal to put the level on her new arm. In this brief moment the tide of everything changes. We get a close up of the slot machine as it, very loudly, stops on three symbols before causing a reaction in which the bear trap like hand goes flying across the alley at Smeech, and eating his hat in what almost sounds like a scene from Scott Pilgrim. It's this moment we realize the fight is going to be VERY different because even the physics of what's to be expected changes. We're going from a very realistic moment of Jinx slipping on discarded food, and wayward weapons getting stuck to a cartoonish bear trap that is somehow able to hover in midair while it chews and drools for no discernible reason. The whole time, no one watching cares that that doesn't make sense because this is the chaos we know Jinx adds to a situation.

1:31 - 2:05: This is another fantastic beat that, like earlier, sets the new ground rules. When the bear trap is returned to the arm we get the intentionally cringy moment of the speakers in the shoulder playing 2015's "Get Jinxed" where Jinx seems to share a long with Sevika that just lets her know to have fun with it which, of course, is immediately followed by the slot machine getting a "00" and failing. One thing that never gets fully confirmed but you can see if you pay attention is that the arm has a scale from 00-99 and the closer to 99 it gets, the more likely it will kill the recipient of the attack. This is the "00" which does absolute fuck-all. So this lets us know that the arm can fail. But it still manages to block Smeech's "go-go-gadget leg" while Sevika readies her next attack. When she pushes Sevika away there's a very clever moment in which they remix the song to play a key line in a loop a second time. The part ending with "I'm really getting bored". So this way, even if you're not familiar with the song, you know what's coming up for when Sevika punches Smeech in slow motion to the word "bored" creating extra oomph for that impact. Somehow, that addition oomph makes the punch with her human arm to the face seem to hurt way more than the second ago where her cyborg arm literally tore Smeech's left arm off. Her punch is so hard that you more than likely almost didn't even notice that he had just lost an arm prior.

2:06 - 2:13: This is a really short moment but one in which Smeech finally starts to realize he might be losing. It's important to the storyline within the fight because it not only gives us a good excuse to turn off "Get Jinxed" and go back to the original song, but it also takes you out of the over the top fight for a minute to remind us, for a moment, that these are real people behind the machines. Sort of like the reason that the Gundams shows focus heavily on the pilots so you remember the human element. A good fight scene establishes that every so often. Reestablishes the vulnerability of the fighters and gets the stakes back up. It also reinforces that this is the new improved confident Sevika.

2:14 - 2:33: In this 20 seconds we get three rapid fire attacks from the arm. Two giant colorful throwing stars, a flame thrower, and then "64" the thick blue smoke followed by the uppercut. Which may not seem like a 64 to everyone but as a former boxer I'm going to tell you that there ain't no punch on Earth that hurts quite like the one you don't see coming. It's a really cool way to showcase the insane amount of variety the arm has (though the show never really showcases this variety again). And it leads to the moment in which her bear trap grabs and smashes Smeech's remaining arm. This sudden freeze in bombastic movement is the moment that people who aren't frantically going through this fight frame by frame like a lunatic (like me) get to see the amount of damage showing on Smeech. I once saved a squirrel that got trampled by a deer and then fell into a bucket of water in the winter and I'll be damned if that ain't what Smeech looks like here. This gives us that moment, that beat, to realize that the fight is over and we're heading into the epilogue of this particular moment.

2:34 - 2:46: I'm isolating this twelve seconds for a reason and I'll get into it in a moment why. First we get Sevika smiling and throwing Smeech's earlier words back at him (which seems like a running thing for his enemies to do) and then she pulls the level on her arm again. The middle wheel on the stop machine stops on the mid section of a massive cartoonish grin that clearly takes up all three spots if completed. Jinx realizes that and we get a gorgeous close up of her reacting. It's the next wheel I wanted to isolate though. After the second wheel stops and we see that we might get the whole smile we get about one second of Isha close up and it is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen in my life. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how the animators so wonderful captured a child's "I wanna see, do it" face but, as a parent, I've seen this on my kids and it's ALWAYS when their kid sense tells them something amazing is about to happen. Kids. Always. Know. So this one second gave me complete chills.

2:47 - 2:53: When the smile is completed and Sevika gets the aforementioned "99" we cut to a prolonged static closeup reaction shot of Isha and Jinx as they react to whatever terrible (and surprisingly wet) fate is befalling Smeech. In addition to the humor this scene invokes, if you watch the moments where Isha and Jinx look at each other you see this need for concern from a child met with the look of silent support from a parent. Honestly, this makes me wonder how many parents worked on this show.

2:54 - END: Afterwards we cut back to Sevika absolutely covered in whatever Ecto Cooler like fluids Smeech was filled with. This moment of gore is interrupted as a celebratory feature actives in the arm and fireworks shoot into the sky. This is another one of those Jinx branded moments in which a disturbing motion is juxtaposed against a scene filled with humor and a really fantastic button for the fight to end on.

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Three minute fight scene with hundreds of details. Honestly, I've watched this fight scene over and over again like a music video and I cannot get over all the details I keep catching. The background details. The things that actually stay on the ground instead of disappearing in the next scene. The respect for the character dynamics. The subtle allusions. It's breathtaking and honestly, as someone who loves breaking down fight scenes, one of the best I've seen in a long time.