Equilibrium (2002) - 5 questions

Question: What did Preston do with the dog? We see that he put it back in the car, but he obviously wasn't going to just walk into his apartment with "contraband". He couldn't just let it go, because the dog wouldn't leave when he tried to before.

Answer: At the end of the film, after Preston kills 'Father' and the explosives are detonated, we see Preston's kids. His son is at school and his daughter is playing with the puppy (she's letting it lick her hand). I assumed that he'd wrapped it up in his coat he used as a bed for it and simply hurried up the stairs.

Question: If the law enforcers are all taking their drugs, why, in the gun battles, are all of the soldiers ducking down and showing signs of fear?

Answer: Feeling actual fear and being trained to not deliberately stand in the line of fire are different things. The soldiers are acting out of self preservation, not fear.

Question: The movie's whole point is that emotions have been stamped out, correct? So why does Taye Diggs smile almost constantly and shows obvious glee, and the Vice Councilor pounds the table in rage. Wouldn't the elite of the government be the ideal?

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.

Question: The speeches that "Father" gives are emotional, in that they are intended to instill emotion in the listener. I understand that Father and presumably quite a few others of the head council are not taking the Prozium, but is there a reason they are still giving these rousing speeches to the masses that are supposedly devoid of emotion? Am I just missing some of the story?

Answer: As I see it, the point of the speeches is not to evoke emotions in the listeners, but rather to show what emotions such as anger and jealousy lead to in the course of human history. So they use historic "evidence" to justify their actions (such as killing sense offenders) and to show what emotions can lead to.

Question: How do the devices Preston uses to shoot guns and magazines from his coat sleeves work? Do they actually exist in real life?

Answer: Wrist holsters do exist for smaller pistols, although I don't know of any current devices that actually bring the weapon forward into the hand. However, somewhat bizarrely, a toy gun back in about 1960 did come with a wrist holster that had this feature - it was referred to as using a "wrist-flick" action. Precisely how Preston's more advanced devices work isn't clear - it most probably involves some specific muscle contraction, which the device can 'read' to bring the gun into play or retract it. The reloading probably has some sort of signal sent from the gun to the device (using something along the lines of today's Bluetooth system), to inform it that a reload is necessary - again, a specific muscle movement (i.e. that required to put the gun into a position where the reload can occur) could be used to trigger the event.