For the better part of the last year, I’ve been reading “news” from the world of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy through the “Planet Magrathea” website written by MJ Simpson.
I’ve always been annoyed by him. He’s been incredibly snotty and snide about anything related to “Guide” or Douglas Adams which doesn’t in some way involve him — he wrote a biography of Douglas Adams — and his constant attitude has made his writings so difficult to get around.
Recently, he reviewed the “Guide” movie in such scathing terms that the internet itself rose up against him. His name became reviled on message boards everywhere, where he was accused of being a “fanboy,” unable to reconcile the fact that a mainstream film is often quite different than the source material.
I won’t really call him to task for his review; if, in fact, the shortcomings he mentioned are still in evidence when the film opens, I must agree that the spirit of the original will be lost. But his every day obnoxious comments are another thing. Plus, his constant self-aggrandizement and complaining about how many posts he’s forced to make to the site are just off-putting.
Can Planet Magrathea withstand much more of this information overload? Last month I ran a massive 105 news stories – and that’s not including all the ones that I updated later the same day.
That’s the price you pay for wanting to be one of the “minor celebrities” that you so disdain, MJ. Success is a bitch, ain’t it?
And what do the weak do when confronted with success and notoriety? Well, they quit, of course.
I have been writing about Douglas Adams and Hitchhiker’s Guide almost without pause for various books and magazines since Douglas died in May 2001. I am thoroughly bored with the subject and have said all there is to say. I am a professional writer and journalist but it has reached the point where I am rarely asked to write about anything else.
In late 2004 I resolved to stop writing about Hitchhiker’s Guide after 6th May 2005, which was at that time the projected release date for the film. I have told plenty of people about this decision over the past few months. I had intended to keep Planet Magrathea going beyond then because I know that a lot of people find it a useful site and it just about pays for itself through Amazon and Google links.
As of today I have decided to just say ‘sod it’ and pack the whole thing in. This is partly because I have recently been adding ten or more news items every day and it is becoming too much hassle. It is also partly because I have for some time been fed up with the negative attitude of the Douglas Adams estate who for four years have been happy to make money from projects that I have worked on or even initiated but have otherwise been thoroughly unhelpful and antagonistic towards me. Let them keep reissuing the books every few months (five new editions in four years – you do the maths). I hope it makes them happy.
Now I have a similar antagonism from Disney/BVI who, it seems, are unable to accept negative criticism of their product. And my views on the quality of the product they have created do not need repeating here.
… I have been widely criticised for wanting the film to exactly replicate the book, even though I never suggested any such thing, and I have been quoted as saying other things that I have never said. I have read that I know nothing about Hitchhiker’s Guide and that I don’t have any understanding of how books get adapted into films. I have read that I went into the screening determined to dislike the film, that I made copious notes during the screening of every minor deviation from the book, and even that I have done nothing but criticise this film all along. None of these are even slightly true and some of them, under other circumstances, would be actionable. If I can read these things, other people can read them too.
Um, you have been criticizing the film all along. Here’s a sample of your criticism (better get it before the site is taken down):
February 2005: Even in this abreviated state, it is clearly a much, much better trailer than the AICN/Amazon one, although it uses some of the same footage. It also, in my view, confirms the unsuitability of Stephen Fry as The Book: it just sounds like Stephen Fry.
I must admit that I was so appalled at the poor quality of the head effect and the arm effect in the drinks-mixing shot that I hadn’t even noticed the third arm also appearing in the former.
Anyway. I’ve given him far too much attention here on my blog. It’s all quite possible that the movie will be horrible, but his review was so colored by his self-important web posts over the last few months that it’s become far too easy to dismiss it. And after promoting himself as the world’s foremost authority on Douglas Adams, his decision to have nothing further to do with HHGTG and Adams just adds credence to those who call him “fanboy.”
Worst critic EVER.
