Steven Spielberg‘s Oscar-nominated picture Lincoln was one of his most critically acclaimed projects. However, Samuel L. Jackson felt the filmmaker might’ve dropped the ball when it came to the end of the movie.

What Samuel L. Jackson didn’t like about the ending to ‘Lincoln’

Samuel L. Jackson | Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Spielberg had a difficult time deciding what period of Abraham Lincoln’s life to cover. The director toyed with focusing on several sections of Lincoln’s history, and initially centered his story on the civil war. But tackling both the civil war and Lincoln proved to be too big of a story.

“It was the story of the last 3 years of the Civil War, and it involved 7 huge battles. Lincoln was prosecuting the war, first through General McClellan and then General Grant. But it was much more of a Saving Private Ryan, set between 1863 and 1865. And it quickly wore thin on me and became clear that it was not the story I wanted to tell. And it quickly disappeared from my life,” Spielberg once told Deadline.

After he and Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner toiled away at the story, they found the perfect piece of Lincoln’s history to adapt.

“Once we focused everything on 2 great issues, the passage of the 13th Amendment and ending the Civil War, everything got a lot more concentrated and a lot more focused,” Spielberg said.

Lincoln would also briefly touch on the former President’s death. And even though the film didn’t show the assassination, Jackson felt the movie messed up covering the end of Lincoln’s life.

“I don’t understand why it didn’t just end when Lincoln is walking down the hall and the butler gives him his hat,” Jackson once told the LA Times. “Why did I need to see him dying on the bed?”

The Marvel star was adamant that the movie’s true conclusion came before Lincoln was on his death bed.

“The movie had a better ending 10 minutes before,” the actor said.