Movie canon equal to the books?

[heidi tandy]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jazmyn [mailto:jazmyn at pacificpuma.com] 
> oradork  gave a link to an article that incorporated an interview with
Steve Kloves http://www.wga.org/WrittenBy/1101/Kloves/Kloves.html

Then Jazmyn got all giddy and said...
> Thank you for posting this. Its close to the article I was 
> trying to find again to show people on the 'literary' list 
> just how much input Rowlings had in the script, thus proving 
> that yes, the movie can be considered 'canon' as the books, 
> due to the author's input and how much she has had to have 
> told them for the actors to understand the characters so well 
> as to portray them so beautifully. 

And I want to remind Jazmyn and all the others who think that the movie,
wonderful as it may be, is somehow canonical that while they could
theoretically argue that the above referenced article could provide some
arguments as to canonicity found in the movie of PS/SS, no such argument
can be extrapolated from the above article in application to CoS, as the
article was specifically about the writing of PS/SS. All you have to do
is look at the date on which the article was published - November, 2001.


In other words, the interview was conducted before October, 2001, and
was part of the press for PS/SS, and has *no* relevance to the writing
of CoS at all.

I personally do think that the perspectives of the actors, of Steve
Kloves and of Chris Columbus all have relevance in trying to predict
future canon, or in determining characterisations to date - they are
perspectives that are just as interesting and relevant as any literary
expert. But as they are not JKR, they are not canon.

The commonly held definition of "canon" is something referring to a
character, event, plotline, etc. which happened "for real" -- the actual
professional source material. Under this definition, there is a canon
from the films (you know, the place where Seamus is a klutz and Fluffy
came from Ireland, not Greece) but it does not equate to the lines from
the books. It's interpritive, to be sure, and interpritations of canon
are certainly interesting and relevant, both here on the main list, but
no interpritation will ever be canon, unless it comes from JKR. 

By the way, you might want to consider removing the "S" from the end of
JKR's name; it doesn't belong there. 

heidi