The trailer for Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life has been captured from the cinema screen and place online, again well before the studio decide to put the trailer itself online for everyone to see. I think this a ploy believing that people will pay cinema ticket prices for a film just to see a trailer before it. Not me, trailers don't make me go to a film.

So now we get to see a half decent look at the trailer for The Tree of Life, about a boy growing up and how his perception of the world around him changes as life moves on.

The film features Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain and there's been a lot of uncertainty about what the film is really about. However along with the bootlegged trailer Collider carry an explanation from the Terrence Malick production:

We trace the evolution of an eleven-year-old boy in the Midwest, JACK, one of three brothers. At first all seems marvelous to the child. He sees as his mother does with the eyes of his soul. She represents the way of love and mercy, where the father tries to teach his son the world’s way of putting oneself first. Each parent contends for his allegiance, and Jack must reconcile their claims. The picture darkens as he has his first glimpses of sickness, suffering and death. The world, once a thing of glory, becomes a labyrinth.

From this story is that of adult Jack, a lost soul in a modern world, seeking to discover amid the changing scenes of time that which does not change: the eternal scheme of which we are a part. When he sees all that has gone into our world’s preparation, each thing appears a miracle—precious, incomparable. Jack, with his new understanding, is able to forgive his father and take his first steps on the path of life.

The story ends in hope, acknowledging the beauty and joy in all things, in the everyday and above all in the family—our first school—the only place that most of us learn the truth about the world and ourselves, or discover life’s single most important lesson, of unselfish love.

Let's just head straight to the trailer for The Tree of Life before it's taken down at source, or better still the production company just let the trailer lose on the world, after all they are wanting to market the film, so why not release the marketing material to the world so that they can see it? Isn't not releasing the trailer defeating the role of the marketing company?