The movie rule

davewitley dfrankiswork at davewitley.yahoo.invalid
Sun Aug 1 23:49:29 UTC 2004


I have no knowledge of the internal debate that led to the re-
imposition of the stronger line on movie-related posting on the main 
list.  However, based on the wording of the admin and my knowledge 
of the history of the movie list and its relation to the main list, 
I feel Petra's and Dicentra's replies to Geoff miss the point a 
little.

Here is the relevant text of the admin:

"Due to the recent very high message volumes on the main list, and
the inevitable tendency of any discussion referencing the Warner
Bros. Harry Potter films to drift off-topic, the elves have decided
to reinstate the old rule banning discussion of the films on the
main list, effective immediately. If you wish to post about the
films, even if you are using them as support for a book-related
point, please direct your post to the Movie list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-Movie "

My understanding is, that, other things being equal, there *is* a 
valid place for the movies in canon-related discussion ("support for 
a book-related point") and that, in that sense, Geoff has logic on 
his side.

We don't know the extent to which the movies may indicate canonical 
developments not yet revealed, or partially revealed, in the 
existing books, and JKR herself has dropped intriguing hints on 
this.  Furthermore, there is the interesting question, not much 
discussed, of the extent to which JKR's portrayal of characters in 
OOP may have been influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by her 
viewing of the first two movies.  (There is a moment, for example, 
where Nearly Headless Nick is cut short in conversation; I wondered 
if that was a playful reference to the way John Cleese gets so 
little screen time.  (If anyone wants to respond to *this* point, 
they'd better do so on the movie list))

Also, it has in the past been a valid main list topic to discuss the 
extent of 'canon' itself - some, unlike Dicentra, do not accept 
anything from JKR's interviews as valid, for example.  The movies 
are legitimately part of that discussion, especially as not all 
would accept there just two simple categories, canon and not-canon.

My understanding of the reason for the rule, however, is that it is 
impossible in practice to hold the logical line ("the inevitable 
tendency of any discussion referencing the Warner Bros. Harry Potter 
films to drift off-topic").  Threads which validly discuss the canon 
implications of the movies just too often fail to stay that way.  
People start discussing the content of the movies themselves 
instead.  So the rule is about pragmatic control of the content of 
the lists, not about whether the movies have a place in canon 
discussion.

For that reason, I feel that discussion of the extent of JKR's 
influence on the movies is beside the point as far as this rule is 
concerned.  Anyone who wants to suggest an alternative needs to 
look, not to logic, but to a practical and easy-to-understand-and-
enforce definition of what is on-topic for the main list.

Dicentra's list of acceptable and unacceptable posts missed out the 
kind of post that, I thought, has now changed status as a result of 
the rule:

"I think that Lupin's references to Lily in the movie foreshadow a 
Lupin/Lily ship which JKR revealed to Kloves and Thewlis, which she 
is intending to put into HBP."

As I understand it, that was acceptable before the rule change, and 
now is not.  I thought all the unacceptable ones listed by Dicey 
were already unacceptable, because they illuminate no canon point.

Is that right?

David





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