Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

Today in class, one group brought the debate between Star Wars fans about whether or not George Lucas has the ability to change his text.  I found this interesting because a couple days ago I saw a message board on IMDb.com that was discussing whether George A. Romero’s new zombie movie Diary of the Dead is part of his zombie canon.  For background knowledge, the reason why this debate occurred is because the new movie takes place during the beginning of a zombie outbreak while Romero’s previous four films have shown a progression within an outbreak.  Although the discussion on the actual board is not all that enthralling, I found the concept to be interesting.  I was wondering what seems to be the common belief with regards to canon, is it simply whatever the producer says is true or are the fans the actual judge of what is canon?  Also, if the fans are the deciders why is there a distinction between canon and fanon?

Greg and I discussed this at the end of class. This is what resulted.