June 09, 2012This has me stumped too. I watched more closely on my second viewing and didn't notice any other doors in the Temple other than the one everyone came in by. So, all these Space Jockeys run in, and one gets his head cut off at the door.
Do the others leave after a while when it's safe? And while we may assume some chestburters killed them... why are their bodies arranged in a pile? Surely the odds that they would die in those positions in a corridor are quite slim?
As for the green stone on the altar... I was thinking that besides being a focus for their death cult, that is also plays a role in controlling the black goo, and that the temple also functions as a production facility, to fill the urns/ampoules which then go to the ships. We see 2 worms in the gravel of the temple floor too, but it's not clear whether they got dragged in on the boots of the humans, (which seems unlikely in gravel rather than mud) or were inside already, and yet dormant (otherwise they would have already eaten the tasty Space Jockey head in the 2000 years since it was cut off - but since it's "rremarrkably well prreserrved" according to the dour Doctorr Forrde we know that it hasn't even been touched by microbes. I think it's deliberately ambiguous to mess with out heads. Did the foot making the footprint drag in the worms, or did the worms wake up when the door opened and somebody stepped on their gravel? Either way, the two worms are probably what turned into the two cobra-like creatures.
That makes me wonder if something in that room keeps that black goo dormant, (which might explain the rush into the temple - trying to stop the contagion. Or it could be the closest room with a door, and the last Space Jockey stops, stumbles and looks behind as if they were being chased.)
Whatever the reason for running in, the fact is when the door opens, none of their bodies are found inside, so where did they go? And how did they exit. We see no 2nd door. If they came out the way they went in, how come nobody moved the decapitated head? And why are they then in a pile next to another door? I think they are close to the temple, because Milburn and Fifield say its near to where Shaw found the head. So perhaps there's a secret exit.
Related to this, I think is the hologram in the bridge... at first I assumed that the reason the pilot is the sole survivor is that the other three Space Jockeys leave the bridge and he goes to sleep, awaiting his mission, safely behind a giant locked door. When I rewatched it, I saw the holograms of Space Jockeys were checking the stasis beds, and there looked to be holes in three of them... so again I am stumped as to why this one guy isn't dead.
So if some Space Jockeys discovered the outbreak, and they don't all die at once, perhaps the last ones to leave (or die) cleared the corridor by piling up the bodies, and got killed before they got a chance to move the decapitated Space Jockey.
