Character and continued spoilers
Thanks for the link Fox, I'd missed that interview. It occured to me, watching the film, that the loss of the major charaters did in fact set up a huge tension in the last half-hour or so. All bets were off at that point--*any* of these people could be next to go.
I thought it was a sound dramatic decision. The fact that it pulls the emotional carpet out from under the feet of the fans is, in fact, the whole point.