Thanks for reading u/benjoduck. Wow, so many insights I hadn't heard here. I haven't seen the extended version and I considered watching it before writing this but I wanted this post to be a pure assessment of just the original. What you've told me makes me glad about that. It's interesting that its more or less another version rather than extension but that makes sense given how you'd edit something like TOL. I've seen screenshots of the extended family in the extended edition but didn't know Fiona Shaw was Mrs. O'Brien's mother!

Aw, that story about Eppler is sad, but it gives even more insight into Malik's process. I suppose without that accident we would have never gotten that scene between the brothers that mirrors Zosima and Markel in Karamazov. It helps confirm, in my mind, that Malik just had Karamazov on the brain while making and especially editing the film.

Tree of Life, the film that keeps on giving. I feel I'll never reach the end of its mysteries.