It is an interesting question, especially if (as in this case) the author of the books is intimately involved with the movies. I'm fine with referring to "movie canon" as opposed to "book canon," to indicate that they are separate versions of canon, but I don't rank them the same: I put the books as "more canon" than the movies.
Some people might argue, "If the author herself approved the screenplay, doesn't that sort of automatically make it equal canon?" I would say not; the pre-existing story which was purely words had to be reworked for a different format (visual), therefore it was a forced alteration based on considerations other than pure authorial intent, and to me that drops the movies below the books, if only slightly.
On the other hand, I'm emphatically not in favor of using the terms "book canon" and "movie canon" with LotR, because that film version was entirely Peter Jackson's creation, even though he used Tolkien as the basis. To me Tolkien only has book canon :)
Where it gets a bit tricky, I think, is when the author actually admits that they made a mistake in the books. Like JKR saying that Hermione and Ron weren't really suited for each other after all. What does one do with that twist??
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Date: 2014-03-28 10:02 pm (UTC)It is an interesting question, especially if (as in this case) the author of the books is intimately involved with the movies. I'm fine with referring to "movie canon" as opposed to "book canon," to indicate that they are separate versions of canon, but I don't rank them the same: I put the books as "more canon" than the movies.
Some people might argue, "If the author herself approved the screenplay, doesn't that sort of automatically make it equal canon?" I would say not; the pre-existing story which was purely words had to be reworked for a different format (visual), therefore it was a forced alteration based on considerations other than pure authorial intent, and to me that drops the movies below the books, if only slightly.
On the other hand, I'm emphatically not in favor of using the terms "book canon" and "movie canon" with LotR, because that film version was entirely Peter Jackson's creation, even though he used Tolkien as the basis. To me Tolkien only has book canon :)
Where it gets a bit tricky, I think, is when the author actually admits that they made a mistake in the books. Like JKR saying that Hermione and Ron weren't really suited for each other after all. What does one do with that twist??