The Near Future

Science fiction is a sub-genre of fiction that deals with scientific content, futuristic context, alternate realities and the like. Catching Fire, the second installment of the Hunger Games trilogy belongs to this category since it contains the following characteristics of a science fiction film: a futuristic timeline, a dystopian social setting, and advanced technology.

What was interesting about the film is that, although we can see elements pertaining to the future, the main plot including the characters of the movie are extremely familiar to us. The film is in itself a social commentary of the past and present world context. Although surrealistic and a little distorted, it reflects society today as we know it before and today. The author and the film director was able to humanize the characters in Catching Fire to the extent that despite their cutthroat world, they are still able to function as rational human beings. The human spirit is not put out despite the huge disparity not only in the social stratification but also in their treatment as a member of their respective districts.

Science, technology, and society have their own strengths and weaknesses as exhibited in the book but as a whole, they have failed. The mere fact that it was set in a dystopian society is a manifestation of the failure of the three aspects in such a way that they are not able to become synergistic nor were they able to improve the lives of the people in order to form a healthy type of order in their society. The division of Panem into 13 districts was a good and at the same time a bad move. It was like devising a system of a huge assembly line where each district would specialize on something to maintain a distinct division of labor. It is advantageous in the sense that each district would be able to focus on a specific product. However, this also led to the wide gap between those who are more privileged and those who are not. This only emphasized the dystopic setting of society which is possible in our time as what we know as globalization almost has the same gradual effect as that of the Hunger Games.

Lara Gianina S. Reyes

2010-11072