And today's random fannish burblings

[omorka]

A question for the general audience, and then some rather silly musings.

The Question: Suppose that one's canon is a single movie. Suppose also that a copy of the script is available on the Internet - but, like all films, there were rewrites, ad libs, and scenes that were scripted and filmed but never in the finished film. Suppose also that one has some, but not all, of the missing scenes as extras on the DVD.

Obviously, that extra material isn't canon. But what is it? If one writes something in a fanwork that directly contradicts something that contradicts a scene in the script that was never filmed, or that was filmed but left of the cutting room floor, can someone else call you on it? What if it's a deleted scene that we do have on a public DVD release?



The reason I ask is that there's a version of the script for Ghostbusters II that has a scene that falls after the end of the film as shown, when the 'Busters return Lady Liberty to her pedestal and talk about their own ancestors' experiences of her (or lack thereof, in Winston's case). In the course of this scene, Egon mentions that (a) his grandparents were the original immigrants, and (b) they were from Poland. Ray names his as Swiss.

Now, in the RGB canon, this is directly contradicted; Egon's ancestors have been here for longer than that, at least on his father's side, and Ray may have Swiss ancestry, but he's also Russian and Scots. So if I'm writing cartoon!canon, this simply isn't an issue; canon beats non-canon material.

I've already decided that in my Ghostbusters by Gaslight AU, Egon Spengler is born in Carinthia, Austria. I chose that because it puts him relatively close, as these things go, to Tesla's birthplace. While I could make his family Polish, it makes things confusing and besides, weren't Jews considered rootless cosmopolitans at the time, anyway?. I kind of prefer his family as Austrian Jews, anyway; it, uh, puts them higher in the 'pecking order' and makes their being relatively high status in the community in Ohio more believable. It also connects him more easily with the various occult societies I want him linked with.

Now, I have the 'out' that it's an AU anyway, but - am I looking like an ignorant fan? Is there anyone who's actually going to go 'oh, pfft, I can't take this seriously because she obviously doesn't know that Egon's really Polish' who would be reading an AU early-decopunk fic in the first place?

And what if I go ahead and make Egon's family Austrian in a movie!canon fic? (I'm actually more worried about this; see 'it's an AU, just chill' above.) Does it being one version of the script make it close enough to canon that I should feel bad about violating it, or can I, in all good conscience, wave one hand and say "It didn't make it to the screen, and I can therefore ignore it"?

I am aware that I am way overthinking this, but the whole question of what is and isn't canon gets complicated in canons where the author gives too many interviews (HP, Buffy), the author left a lot of notes on parts of the world or history that never got written up (LotR), or the arguable canon spans more than one medium (Who, nu!Star Wars). I don't want to trip over rules that someone feels are established. Given that the 'Busterfandom is fairly small and fairly inactive, I'm probably okay, but its small nature means that I really don't want to piss off anyone in it already.




So, the Four Kings theory of fictional groups:

The Kings: Swords (air, East); Wands (fire, South); Cups (water, West); Pentacles (earth, North)

So far I've got:

Trek (TOS or Nu!Trek): Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty
Ghostbusters: Egon, Peter, Ray, Winston
LotR (specifically, the hobbits): Frodo, Pippin, Merry, Sam
Eureka: Nathan, Jack, Henry, Vince

Any others?

Comments

[scarfman]

I am way overthinking this

This is exactly why I deny the existence of canon and utilize instead the concept of sources. I say use the source you prefer, or that suits your story best. If you're afraid of alienating a reader who isn't familiar with the source, note the source in the headers.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

In this case, I would consider: how internally consistent are my sources?

In the case of RGB, not so much- so I'd take the movie cutout over the cartoon.

If it's truly important to you, I'd also consider hunting up movie novelizations (don't know if they exist) as secondary sources- not definitive, but possibly valuable.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

I have the novelization of the first movie. The one for the second is really hard to find, although it looks like some of the used bookstores that sell though Amazon have it. But really, since in both cases they're written off of the shooting script, if you've got the script, nothing the books add on top of that is canonical.

The funny thing about the first movie novelization is that it's written by one of the more prolific (and better, IMHO) writers for RGB, and he obviously changed his mind about the Columbia Trio's families between the two projects. So that actually makes things more complicated.

For all that the later seasons don't hold together well, RGB generally doesn't contradict itself, so as long as I resign myself to separating the movie!canon from the cartoon!canon, that's not a big issue.

[follybard.livejournal.com]

Firefly: Simon, Mal, Wash, Jayne?

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Given the usual implications of Healing and Traveling, I'd swap Simon and Wash, but good call!

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

Since Aykroyd & Ramis wrote the script for II, it's canon, even if they wrote it on a roll of toilet paper. If this were anyone other than the original creators penning it, I'd say you had an argument for bending it as you saw fit, but with Aykroyd's obsessive attention to detail, you have to know that even if it wasn't filmed, it was part of the bible.