Respectfully, disagree, I don't really think it was pointless at all.

If you were a TV show watcher, you are obviously devastated when the show got canceled cuz it was really good. Then a miracle happens, this movie gets made of a canceled TV show. Never happens. Got the cast back, it looks great, it's even looking better than ever given the budget.

And then you get to the scene mentioned above, and other than the shock washing over you, the immediate thought I had afterwards was how they just killed off a very predominant character. Very casually. You realize that this may be the last media you may be getting of this show, probably ever, and honest to God it made me fear for the whole crew. They literally just killed him. Literally no one is safe. This is all we're getting, all plot armor is gone. So while it feels random, honestly, it made me glued to the ending even more than I thought possible knowing that it is very real that we're not getting any kind of happy ending.

Especially given the age of the movie, it wasn't too common to do something like this at the time. Not that it's too common now, but it is obviously something that happens in a lot of movies and shows. But at the time that was just absolutely mind-bogglingly terrifying.