Arcane's second season has hit some fans all weird—while I'm of the opinion that animation studio Fortiche did a pretty dang good job all things considered, cramming as much story as it possibly could into every frame, it's also an imperfect show in the sense that all shows are imperfect. Coulda, woulda, and even some scant shouldas abound.
Namely, some fans felt that the season's finale was a mite rushed, being a mostly standard-length episode where everything gets tied up in a bow faster than fabric in a bow-making factory. This particular rumour mill hasn't been helped by interview asides made by co-creator Christian Linke, who has said in interviews that he'd have liked a bit more time to wrap up certain arcs.
I've been a medium amount of skeptical that anything nefarious went on behind the scenes, especially given Arcane had a very high budget (although still not too far above most animated movies in terms of watch-hours) for production and marketing both. Now, Linke's taken to Reddit to set the record straight (thanks, Gamesradar):
- Riot's co-founder says money isn't everything: 'People think we make things like Arcane to sell skins when in reality, we sell skins to make things like Arcane'
- League of Legends' new season trailer is basically an epilogue to Arcane with 6 new Fortiche champion redesigns in it—so if it's not a preview of the upcoming Noxus show, I'll eat my hat
"Some theories are a bit too far out there," writes Linke, before having to come out and state that one conspiracy—that the showrunners asked Foritche for a feature-length finale and got rejected, is right out: "It's quite the opposite, our scripts are always shorter than what Fortiche ends up proposing in the story board phase. We wanna let them get inspired and roam free, so we can then reel it in while also allowing for the magical moments to find themselves. It's a tight creative collaboration, not some sort of 'alright vendor company, do your work, achieve the impossible, but do it quickly!'"
The corporate greed angle, Linke says, is also a heap of nothing: "Yes, there are always constraints, both in budget and time. That's part of our job as creatives, to work within those constraints. Constraints are NORMAL, and they were always generous, and I always had final say on anything creative. But they do exist. They also existed during Season 1."
I think that's fair enough—while the show's first season saw praise along the lines of 'this is what happens when you give artists all the time and money they want', fact of the matter is, if you're making anything for cash, it's gonna have a deadline. Sometimes it'll have a deadline even if you aren't getting paid, just because you'd like to finish the thing someday. Riot was generous by comparison, but its patience and budget isn't infinite, and, more to the point, neither was the patience of the people animating the show.
"It would have been great to have more time to work on this second season, or extra time to add to the episodes, but we didn't have it. For a number of reasons. Budget being one. We have been EXTREMELY lucky … NOBODY ELSE gets these types of budgets. Please don't forget that.
"Time being the other constraint … There's a release window that a massive amount of people work towards, not just at Fortiche, but also at Riot on different games, at Netflix, brand partners. Even key talent that works on the show that, simply put, is getting tired cranking away at this incredibly long season and project over multiple years."
In other words—nothing lasts forever, and no creative endeavour comes out perfect. That might leave a bit of a sting to those expecting some kind of transcendental storytelling nirvana out of Arcane's second season, but for me, my rotten little heart loves imperfect and wonky stories. I'm also glad Fortiche, a studio I want to see make other stuff, hasn't burned itself out completely in the pursuit of passion.
"It's not perfect. You don't take these types of hefty swings and expect that everything wraps up perfectly with a neat bow tie. It grows and evolves in its own way, and it becomes what it becomes." While I do appreciate Linke's transparency here, I do think now that he's said his piece it's time to log off for a minute—you categorically can't please everyone. Besides, it ain't over until the fatcats stop funding a big animated League of Legends universe. I think that's how the saying goes, anyway.
