Because the pilot has rapid scene changes and some grainy animation, use -preset slow with libx264 to retain detail without bloating file size.
Input source: Rick_and_Morty_S01E01_Pilot.mkv (or original Blu-ray/Web-DL)
Here’s a text block you can use, for example, as a note, script comment, or metadata summary:
Using ffmpeg to re-encode, remux, or extract streams from the pilot episode.