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The aspect which I found most disturbing was the attitude of the town merchants that it was more important to protect tourism - the almighty dollar - than to protect people by admitting there was a shark. <<

I thought that that was the only nod to realism in the movie. The rest was fantasy.

But they were proactive. They did send that crew to catch the shark. Didn't they?

On the other hand after reading what Little Hawk said about the "real" sharks. I imagined Alan Greenspan with an oxygen tank in his mouth and a sheriff shooting at the tank. Felt good...