Have people really changed that much? I think it would be difficult today to get a crowded beach scene where the people looked so good and fit, even if they were screening the extras. For one thing, it wouldn't look normal, not with a 60% (alleged) overweight statistic, so they might not cast the crowd so fit.
I'm curious just how much they needed to screen the crowd back then (1984) to get such a good-looking bunch.
Nowadays it would probably look more like a beach full of John Candys.
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irishd76: "Critical thinking is clearly not your strong suit...This was a movie. They weren't going to cast a bunch of obese extras, and that was not a legitimate sample of the population."
Read my post over again, several time please. You may realize that what you've written makes no sense in reference to my original careful wording:
"..it would be difficult today to get a crowded beach scene where the people looked so good and fit, even if they were screening the extras. For one thing, it wouldn't look normal, not with a 60% (alleged) overweight statistic, so they might not cast the crowd so fit."
It was worded that way just to cover the exact type of misunderstanding you've made.
Regarding a "legitimate sample of the population" a beach crowd was certainly not that in the 1980's. It was mostly only those who had confidence in their "beach bodies". These days that standard has been lowered.
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Everything about "Hollywood" is screened, going all the way back to the '20s, or whenever films were first made.
shareTimes, lifestyle and what is acceptable body frame has changed. Remember, nowadays, everything is so much more convenient. You have computers to shop, you can watch movies on demand, cell phones to call whenever you want, kids spending LOTS of time through electronic interaction and experience(video games, chats, facebook, youtube). If anybody remembers, back in the 80s, you wanted to buy something, you went to the store(or stores, if you were going shopping for clothes), walked around, browsed and such. Wanted to watch movies, you went to the movie theaters(like today, though it was actually in better shape, the industry, because it was the only out to watch new movies). You wanted to call someone when you were out, you actually had to FIND a payphone and call from there, but most of the times, because it cost money, people didn't bother unless it was an emergency(freeing their time up to concentrate on whatever they were doing, hence no texting while driving, no cellphone related accidents). Computers were pretty primitive and video games(consoles) were getting better, but kids were always encouraged to take time out and play outside. Y'know, run around, do something win the sun, go to the park, play tag and such. Majority of people WERE more active simply because you HAD to be, given the situation.
Also, body time was more forgiving. You could have a little cushion and still look acceptable. You see guys with their shirts off being rather fit, but not rip and cut, and it was fine. You could see girls with some shape to them and it was fine. I think when you go extreme with pushing an acceptable body type, it overwhelms more people and the gap between fit and unfit grows considerably larger because of that. Though, they are stressing more activity nowadays, especially with children(Get Active!), the lure electronics is probably too powerful for most. Why exercise when I could be playing Call of Duty or Halo with friends? Why go out to watch a movie when I could watch it on Netflix, in HD, in the comfort of my own home? Of course, the Recession isn't doing any favors, it's putting a brick on the situation.
All that is true about people, and especially kids being more active before the 1990's.
That, I think, is also a reason why most movies about kids these days seem to be about about kids of previous decades--1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s. Hollywood doesn't seem much interested in today's plump, texting, convenience spoiled generation.
There's another basic extras problem with scenes like the beach scenes. These scenes usually depict families and therefore kids. It must be pretty much impossible today to just compose a crowd of families with individuals screened for slimness. How many families have no chubby members? And you can't just distribute individually selected kids out amongst a crowd of strangers on a chaotic movie location; you need the parents with their own kids.
This has traditionally been done by using cast and crew families. In the past most of the kids and people were nowhere near 50-70% obese. But today, they would need to either accept an overweight crowd, or tell most of the cast and crew that their families were not wanted as extras. You'd be offending them and you'd come up very short with your beach crowd.
So, I think that movies are just avoiding such scenes altogether. Have you seen a beach crowd in a recent movie that look like the Summer Rental (1985) crowd, or the Jaws (1975) crowd? I'd say don't expect to ever again, unless it's CGI.
Here's a similar post of mine from The Spy Who Loved Me. (1977).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076752/board/nest/211991581
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They wouldn't have had to screen that many people, since back in the 80's (and centuries before) there weren't near as many obese and overweight people as there are now. Going to the beach as a kid in the 70's & 80's didn't terrify me near as bad as it does now. Even with hippie women who didn't shave. Yikes.
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