Well it's not so much about the kind of tree they chose - it's about that cliché and its pointless appearance:


I mean it's this cliché of the big tree with those strange kind of snake like roots which in this case stands upon some rock in some snowy mountains right next to the entrance of a dragon cave. But not only that - it's also engraved to a weapon for whatever reasons. I don't know what that old man did say about it but it occured to me to be really pointless and random...

I mean they were aware that they didn't do a feature length movie so shouldn't it have been obvious that there's no point in the raid on Sintel in the middle of nowhere where she gets a weapon which has the engraving of a tree which for no obvious reason has grown on some piece of rock in some snowy mountains right next to the entrance of the dragon cave Sintel was looking for in the first place. It's really just like they had a new tool and wanted to do a tree with it which somehow had to be integrated into the story despite it adding anything to it or even making sense. That's why I get the feeling that the focus was too much on using and testing new features in contrast to making a good movie. Those flaws in the storyline should have been pretty obvious in the storyboard stage but still they kept them...

And as I described it isn't just about this weapon-engraving-tree-cave. There's the chicken chase, the apple box, the not very well expressed reason as to why Sintel goes on the journey and also the collapsing cave at the end. For me those are too many "screw-ups" in order to really like the story...

They still did a good job despite some texture work and animations I guess which is why I think it's sad that they didn't come up with a better story that doesn't throw random and pointless stuff at you...