Reaction Paper: Catching Fire

MARQUEZ, Kristina Patriz S.
2013-48674
STS-THY
Reaction Paper: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

     I consider the movie, Catching Fire, as a science fiction film. Science fiction films use futuristic settings, especially in the field of science and technology. These settings and elements are usually used to explore consequences of science innovations and its effects on our established society.

     Science fiction films depict the possible future world. Though it is fair to say that it uses as much as imagination as fantasy films do, it is more realistic because it bases on the available technology we have, and on the nature and values of our society today— that was what Catching Fire for me was.

     For us of our time, the film may seem so surreal because of the irony it depicts (the unjust government and the American setting), but it is greatly undeniable that a slight possibility of that happening is an absolute 0%.

     For me, the most striking statement of film was its depiction of the existence of injustice regardless of the time and place (from the past, in the present, and in the future) without failure, and how its form remained unchanged – its stand between men of the same blood and existence among men of the same land.

     Catching Fire depicts the presence of corrupted, power-thirsty authority - which in the past and until now has caused failures and breakdowns of different groups, of different societies – and the presence of the undying social hierarchy. Though it can be considered a commentary on the past and present human society, it most certainly is a commentary on the future, on how we could become, how our future can be as depicted in the Hunger Games series.

     I don’t believe that the depicted technology in the film failed when it was able to give comfort and add efficiency in the characters’ lives; in my point of view, technology (regardless of its availability) in general is not something that is offered to just anyone but it is more of a something that is offered to those who can afford it. On the other hand, I think that it is the depicted society that had failed. I think that its failure was only magnified through the power of the available technology and through the undying discriminations due to social hierarchy. Science and Technology and the Society failed not because of the advance science and technology but because of its availability and “label”(something that can only be in the hands of those who have the power and money) and the abusive humans who are at the top of the hierarchy.