Save the Last Dance

Save the Last Dance (2001)

30 mistakes - chronological order

(4 votes)

Continuity mistake: When Chenille grabs the guy groping her, Sarah is standing next to them, but during two shots from behind the guy's shoulder, she's nowhere to be seen. Because of Sarah's position, she should be visible, despite the camera angle. (00:27:10)

Kylantha

Continuity mistake: When Nikki is talking to Derek at Steps, at the end of the first shot, she begins to move her left arm up towards his neck. In the next shot, her left arm is already around his neck, before he pushes her arms down. In the next shot, her left arm is up again as she caresses the back of his neck. In the following shot, her hand has suddenly moved to the side of his head, but in the next shot, her arm is down. (00:29:50)

Kylantha

Continuity mistake: At the clinic, when Chenille is arguing with the woman, there's a man behind Sarah, with his arm around a boy, while another boy is standing in the corner. In the next shot, the boy in the corner is the one being held by the man, and the other boy has moved to the other side of the table next to them. (01:19:20)

Kylantha

Visible crew/equipment: About half way through the movie, Sara and Derek are at Sara's apartment and she tells him that her father has a good stereo system. When she turns it on, you can see the reflection of the pole that holds the boom mic in a framed picture of a woman's face just to the upper right of her head. (01:23:20)

Character mistake: During the movie's opening credits, Sara is shown auditioning for Juilliard, which is misspelled as "Julliard" on a sign outside the room where the audition is occurring.

Continuity mistake: In the scene when Sara gets off from the train and her father asks her how many bags she has, she says that she has two small ones and a big one. But when they walk into their apartment, you can see that she has one small one and two big suitcases.

Continuity mistake: When Sara is getting pushed around by Malakai in the bathroom her hair is all in her face, then when she goes to move it out of her face, it is already back.

Visible crew/equipment: When Sara and her dad are first walking up the stairs to the apartment building, you can see Sara and her father step over the camera and the camera man on the stairs.

Continuity mistake: When Derek and Sara are practicing, her watch is on one hand, but when she sits down the watch is on the other hand, without having enough time for it to be changed.

Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the scene when Sara and Chenille are walking to the club on the sidewalk, there are two people behind them. When Chenille hands Sara her fake i.d, Sara stops and the people try to walk around them. Yet, two shots after that one, the same two people are far behind them.

Continuity mistake: When Derek and Sara are waiting for the bus, as it pulls up it has three numbers as the bus number. As the shot switches to the other side of the bus the numbers are completely different.

Continuity mistake: When Sara first goes to the club you see many people street dancing and a lot of close-ups on other people in the club. Well at the end of the movie when Derek and Sara are dancing you can see the street dancers and all of people from the club earlier wearing the exact same things that they wore in the beginning.

Factual error: It's established that the kids live in and go to school on the South Side (south of the Loop), and much is made of the fact that Malakai has nothing but his "respect" within his neighbourhood. At the movie's end, where Malakai wants Derek to accompany him on the robbery/murder, he tells Derek, "Meet me at 47th street, under the El." Yet when Derek runs off and jumps on the train to go meet Sara, we see him getting on a Brown Line train - those trains can only be found on the North side, miles and miles away from 47th street. In addition, his train is shown heading SOUTH toward the Loop, which means in order to be going that direction on that train he'd have rode on the train for about an hour, past the Loop entirely, then gotten off and turned back around toward the Loop again.

Revealing mistake: Near the end of the movie when Sara is auditioning for the second time she does a flip during her contemporary piece. If you look carefully you can see hair which is not in a bun, but in a pony tail, as Sara has her hair in a bun. This may be Julia Stiles double.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: I just watched it, and the hair is in a bun the whole time.

Revealing mistake: When Sara is auditioning for Juilliard, after she does the grand jete at the end of her ballet piece, you can clearly see that the girl doing the grand jete is not Julia Stiles.

Continuity mistake: During the contemporary piece of Sarah's second edition, the chair on stage keeps switching between facing forwards and backwards (before Sarah turns it around).

Kylantha

Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie when Sara is riding the train, the engine switches from back to front a few times.

Factual error: At the beginning of the movie, Sara gets off the train and tells her father that she has two small bags and one big one, but she was riding a Metra train and you cannot check baggage on a Metra train.

Derek: "Stepps" ain't no square dance.
Sara: That's okay, I'll dance in circles, probably around you.

More quotes from Save the Last Dance

Trivia: The woman who choreographed the dance scenes in the movie is also the choreographer for the Backstreet Boys. She uses a lot of "Backstreet style" dance moves in the movie, especially during Sara's second audition for Julliard. The dance moves she does with the chair are the same moves the Backstreet Boys use in their video for "As Long As You Love Me".

More trivia for Save the Last Dance

Question: The first time Sarah goes out clubbing with Chenille, they run into some other girls from their school. One of them is Nikki, who gets mean and says that she's 'not walking on eggshells just because someone brought the Brady Bunch to the N*gro club'. Chenille gets offended and yells "Nikki, you did not just call me a N*gro." How is the term N*gro offensive? Or were they just not allowed to say ni**err in this movie? (Perhaps to preserve the rating?) Someone please help - this has been driving me nuts.

Answer: "N*gro" was the PC term in the 60's. While by no means vulgar, it has mostly fallen out of use and some people are offended by it.

Grumpy Scot

More questions & answers from Save the Last Dance

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