Reaction Paper: Catching fire and teen angst with a revolution on the side.

First, is the film Science Fiction? Why or why not?

                The emotional circus of adolescence and running a revolution set in the backdrop of advanced technology and appalling gaps of both wealth and standards of living, the movie-adapted novel of Suzanne Collins “Catching Fire,” is science fiction

                Not contesting the merit of the novel nor the movie, I would daresay that Catching Fire is, aside from being a science fiction is a fantasy teen novel with strong hints of social commentary. True enough that the setting of the film is a society where they feature advanced architecture, better infrastructure, a more stylish (and hopefully more apt) military police.        

Science fiction, as how my English professors taught it, makes a guess of what technologies would be available in the future and then make a society and a story set in the said society about this technology. Hopefully, the story manages to ask questions on issues such as morality, philosophy, and social structure. An example would be “A Stranger in a Strange Land,” a novel about a Human raised in a Human colony in Mars who goes back to his homeland, our Earth. He discovers, however, that he doesn’t fit. He discovers that he isn’t an Earthling. He is a Martian. Science fiction hopes to make its readers ponder such questions. Catching Fire does that. 

Second, is the film a commentary on past, present and future human society?

                The film is a commentary of present society. As globalization pushes nations to take hold of their comparative advantages and specialize in their products and services, the world slowly morphs into the Panem portrayed by Collins. Though driven to the extreme in that dictatorial rule, political and social oppression and downright economic slavery exists, Collins attempts to warn us of what happens in a system of specialized states with only one, and unfortunately-exclusive, capital.

                This present system, however, seems to be in its infancy. With the entire world as the Districts and the few superpowers in the world as the capital.

Third, how does science, technology and society fail or succeed in the world of the 13 Districts?

                Science and technology are worthless if they are not pursued for the benefit of the people. If science and progress would all be directed towards enriching the center while siphoning the resources of the periphery, no matter how far science and technology develops, it fails.

                Science and technology should be used in social services such as medicine or agriculture, and not in petty and political pursuits such as building a Hunger Games arena. As one can see, science and technology is to free people from their inherent limits, not to trap them further into suffering and servitude. Panem fails in this.