At least you had a pick of the seats Chris !

While I'm sure there are lots of reasons for the empty seats, one of which is some people no longer relate to it.
It's not just in the family history of children of some some immigrant families who may originally come from perhaps somewhere in South America or West Africa as examples, where WW2 didn't have the same immediate impact as it did with families in Europe, Australia, USA and Canada and of course in the Far East.
As the Wars of the Twentieth Century fade further into the past, from older family members who lived it, to those who parents or Grandparents pass on, having now no more relevance to Cinema going youngsters today than the Boer war or US Indian wars did when we were younger.
In the grand scheme of things, the eighty years since the end of WW2 isn't that long ago, but when you think about it terms of teenagers, it might as well be a couple of hundred !