Was anybody else surprised that nobody died?

Now that you mention it....that's a really good point to make. Nobody generally gets through a 12 year period without someone dying in their lives. Be it a grandparent, a friend, etc.

People say well, there isn't a Christmas shown in the film either, to make the point that Linklater wasn't trying to stuff every life experience into the film. I get that. But still, one death would have felt realistic.

I went through that period of my life with no deaths in the immediate family. It's not exactly a huge number of people. Same for all my close friends. Plus in this case.... no cast member died either. This hardly qualifies as remarkable.

I was sure it was going to happen during that scene where the alcoholic professor has an episode of road rage and drives like a maniac.

But it didn't. Thankfully. The likeliest victims in that scenario would been one or more of the children.

I thought something would happen when they was throwing that circular blade at the plasterboard and a few other times

I think I remember Linklater saying that if one of the cast members had died they would have worked that into the storyline, but otherwise maybe he just let things roll. If all the cast were still alive, I guess their characters got to be, too.

I suppose one or two of Mason's grandparents may have died (I remember seeing his dad's parents but not his mum's, though I may be wrong). I myself went from age 8-18 without any family deaths. And if you exclude grandparents I didn't lose anyone until I was 21. So I guess it happens.

I heard that Lorelei Linklater asked at one point for Samantha to be killed off, because she was tired of playing the role, but her father thought that was too "dark." Anyway, the structure of the film is such that someone they knew could have died and the audience didn't know about it. It just wasn't anyone we knew onscreen. I don't think it's entirely outside the realm of possibility that of the immediate family - sister, mother, father, grandmother - none would die in a 12-year span. I assume that Mason's grandfather (Olivia's father) was already dead since the grandmother appeared to be single.

The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.

Yeah surprised the grandparents didn't die or something, my one passed away when I was around 13 or so.

Even the grandmother didn't die. Don't know why (as she wasn't that old) but I was surprised to see her at the end.