Little things seem big, and big things seem positively catastrophic. But for loyal viewers this was the culmination of weeks of intense watching. Most movies only last for two hours. That's not long to wait. In TV, aesthetic funding magnifies the importance of little events.
Context lends significance.
In movies, there's only a little bit of time, so the events themselves have to be larger. It's a subjective business. The moral of this story is that when writing a movie you can't be afraid to have huge, life-changing things happen to your characters, even the secondary ones. Use them up. You can make more.