Character mistake: When Mary is in the execution chamber, about to be incinerated, there is a voice over of the countdown till her death. They count back from 9 seconds and say 8 seconds, 7 seconds, 6 seconds, etc. The count is too slow. Every time they say a second, it's actually two seconds having passed. (01:22:10)
Revealing mistake: Before Mary is incinerated, she is shown standing behind the door looking through the T shaped window. Only a portion of her face is seen with her right eye on the left side of the opening, and some hair wavy over it. The shot cuts back and forth between her and Preston a few times, then the camera zooms in on Preston's eye. Mary's reflection is in his eye, however it is not a mirror image when it should be. It should be a mirror image reflected. (01:22:20)
Visible crew/equipment: When Preston's apartment is being searched, he walks into his bathroom to find his hidden Prozium capsules. He shuts the door in the camera's face and when you see the interior of the bathroom (with the camera behind Preston) you can very briefly see the cameraman's head. (01:28:05)
Continuity mistake: In the final rampage through the corridor, Preston shoots through the door, killing the guards on his side but also those in the room - we see them falling to one side. But when the corridor guards fall through the doors, in shots from Preston's point of view the guards are visible standing just inside the door before being knocked down. (01:30:30)
Revealing mistake: It's very brief, but during Father and Preston's fight scene, they mirror imaged part of the movie. It's apparent because the sword on the desk has it's handle pointed to the right and you can see the curtain in the background. In every other shot, the handle is facing to left of the room. (01:33:00)
Revealing mistake: At the beginning of the scene where Preston is taking out all the guards near then end, before he enters the room with Father,he throws the two balanced clips that stop perfectly in front of the camera and perfectly side by side. This is because each clip has a string attached to it, that is just barely visible, that stops them at the right spot. (01:33:10)
Continuity mistake: During the final battle scene, Preston throws the two "weighted" magazines down the corridor, where they stand upright and wait for him. But as he battles his way down the hall, in various shots his guns already have the weighted mags in them, before he drops his regular mags and inserts the new ones from the floor. (01:33:25)
Continuity mistake: In the scene after the destruction of the "TV center", Preston is looking out through a window over the city's explosions taking place. In one shot his right hand is shown holding the red piece of fabric he got from Mary O'Brian. In a scene before that, when he destroyed the "TV center", his right hand was bloody. He could have gone to wash it in between, but that seems unlikely, since his neck wound is still not taken care of. (01:34:45 - 01:36:10)
Revealing mistake: In the final encounter Preston takes on eight Clerics with Samurai swords. Watch him stab the last one and you can see the blade go under the man's arm. The shot changes and the flaw is just as apparent when Preston takes up the sword again, the stabbed Cleric is holding the blade for him. (01:35:20)
Revealing mistake: At the end when Brandt pulls out the Katana from Father's desk, the close-up shows it's clean and shiny. When he swings it it looks grey and plastic like obviously used for lightness and safety. (01:35:40)
Continuity mistake: In the final showdown, Christian Bale quickly slices up Taye Diggs. Diggs drops his sword before falling to his knees, then it cuts to a wider shot showing the sword still in his hand. (01:35:55)
Continuity mistake: When "Father" and Preston are fighting, Preston manages to take the gun away. You can see that both hands are empty, but during the next shot, "Father" still has a gun in his right hand. Then, when they cut to the full shot of father straightening up, his hand is empty again. (01:37:00)
Continuity mistake: At the end of the Kung Fu gunfight between Preston and DuPont, Preston snaps some of DuPont's fingers and gets his gun away from him. Just after that, DuPont screams "Wait! Wait!" Watch his hand as he says this. The close up shows DuPont has his index finger extended and pointed at Preston with his other fingers folded down, and his thumb extended out. There is a jump cut to a distance shot and suddenly his hand changes. Now all his fingers are extended towards Preston. After a moment, he slowly folds his other three fingers and his hand looks like it did previously. But then the shot cuts to behind DuPont and all his fingers are extended again. (01:37:05)
Revealing mistake: After Preston shoots Father, there is a wide shot and we see Brandt's face on the ground. Not only is there no blood surrounding it, it completely clashes with the floor, making it painfully obvious that it's CGI. (01:37:45)
Continuity mistake: After the final battle, Christian Bale has blood on his collar, dribbling down it in three or four places. In a few close-up shots though, the collar only has a very small amount of blood, right on the edge. (01:38:30)
Continuity mistake: In the burly battle at the end of the film, in which a couple dozen guards are dispatched, Preston's white Nehru jacket remains spotless. Even after he kills DuPont, there isn't a speck of blood on Preston's jacket. Moments later, in the Father's broadcasting room, Preston now has a considerable neck wound and a quantity of blood staining the jacket collar and shoulder. The DVD lamely attempts to explain this delayed bleeding as a bullet wound that Preston sustained while fighting DuPont. However, after Preston shoots up the broadcasting room and finally exits the Equilibrium building, the blood stains have mostly vanished from the shoulder and collar of his white jacket.
Factual error: When the SWAT trooper is executing the dogs, he does so with a WA2000 sniper rifle...which both he and the film treat like a shotgun. The actor moves his hand back and forth along the underside of the weapon, miming working a pump action that his gun does not have, and the audio matches with the sound of a shotgun being cocked.
Character mistake: The red ribbon with Mary's scent. Preston always holds it in his right hand and keeps it in his right pocket. However, Yurig (the leader of the Underground), during Preston's low detector test where the Resistance is ensuring that Person really has begun to feel human emotions, Yurig says: "you carry a ribbon with her scent in your left pocket. You smell it sometimes when you think no-one is watching...etc." But it was never in his left pocket, always in his right.
Answer: Because of their display of emotions it is clear that the elite are not taking their Prozium. If the idea of the emotionless society worked, then yes the elite should be taking their Prozium. However, this society obviously doesn't work and instead of being the solution to all man's problems, Prozium have just become a way of subduing the masses while the elite are free to do as they please.
Andreas[DK]