Continuity mistake: In the pistol whipping scene, we see Preston deploying a set of "studs" from his pistols. However, in a later shot, where we see the pistol butt's closing reflection on a visor, the studs aren't out. (00:58:50)
Continuity mistake: When Christian Bale is fighting the guys with the spiked butts of his guns, he breaks one guy's visor. Then it shows a side-view of his gun, and there are no spikes. (00:58:55)
Continuity mistake: The photo of Cleric Partridge with Mary O'Brien is crumpled and folded when we first see it in the morgue and when Cleric Preston shows it to O'Brien. However, when Preston is sitting at his desk and looking at the photo by himself, closeups of the photo show it as smooth without the signs of wear and tear seen previously. (01:01:25 - 01:03:20)
Continuity mistake: When Preston is crying over Sean Bean he has a face full of tears. When the guard enters Preston stands and he has a tear-free face. (01:03:05)
Continuity mistake: The second interrogation of Mary doesn't go so smoothly once Preston tells her that he was the one who killed Partridge. She grabs a pen and tries to stab him with it. They wind up on the table in their struggle and he is on top of her. The side shot shows their faces right next to each other, with their noses barely an inch apart. The shot changes to over Preston's shoulder and their faces are suddenly noticeably much further apart. (01:05:00)
Continuity mistake: When you see cleric Preston's wife walking to the incinerator, if you look very closely, you see that they are not the same person, one is a look-alike. [Director Kurt Wimmer reveals the reason for this during one of the commentary tracks (still a mistake, but here's why). The incinerator scene was shot first. When it came to shooting the house arrest scene (which occurs earlier in the film, but was shot later) the actress was nowhere to be found, hence the use of a lookalike.] (01:19:50)
Continuity mistake: Mary O'Brien is trying to collect herself before entering the execution chamber. If you take a closer look, you'll see cleric Preston standing right behind her. He is supposed to arrive in front of the execution chamber only after Mary has already stepped inside it and the lock has been engaged. (01:21:25)
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)
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)
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)
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.
Chosen 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.
Andreas[DK]