was the (green crystal) alien mural another door?

Well I know some think the 'green crystal has' no bearing on the story. Having given it much thought, I think it may have some significance. I'm not sure about it's position within the ship, but I don't think it could have been an outer wall. Nor do I think it dissolved, like the ceiling murals. What if the crystal, when activated, opened the door with the 'Deacon/Alien' relief? It does look like an entrance to another chamber. Pity the crew couldn't have explored further! There may be very important secrets waiting to be discovered in there!

I promised I wouldn't do this again, but I can't stop myself. that's not a deacon relief it is a straight up Xeno relief. There's even pictures of facehugger implantations on the bottom left and right corners. The depictions look nothing like squiddie from the movie. I had always speculated that this was a xeno life cycle depiction. this proves it beyond doubt.

Lone, yeah, but FOOLS RUSH IN, right? They'd just landed, night was falling, what did Holloway do? Exactly, didn't give the narrative time to breathe. Choked any potential to death. Literally. Silly, impetuous, drunkard Holloway. I suspect that (even in this non-Giger'd) Prometheus world THE FACEHUGGER is going to turn out to be the Great Unsung Hero of [b]everlasting life[/b]. Remember, millennia ago, the original SpaceJockey was ceremonially transporting a whole cargo of these ESSENTIAL LONGEVITIY DEVICES, these facehugger primed Eggs to somewhere... [img]http://www.the-big-picture.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/HR-Giger-detail.jpg[/img]

@Myrddin365 OK, OK Alien Relief then! I used 'Deacon' as that's how some people refer to it! The mural depicts "a pointy-headed Giger-esque creature, which appears to have been crucified", to quote the Art of the film.

In the pic at the top there is a face with it's eyes closed just above the deacon. Am I seeing things.

The green crystal goo is it s blood!

what images do you all see in this mural. I see two engineers or humans with face hungers attached (bottom left & right) two more face huggers above that, the Deacon in the middle center, and another face above the deacons head with it's eyes closed.

It kinda of makes sense that the wall mural might have been a sealed corridor cause on the holographic display there was a couple of engineers that made it into the room but their bodies weren't in there? Where did they go? The green crystal thing was pointing to the mural so perhaps it is part of the technology that created the mural and sealed the passage out of the room.

When they first enter the ampule chamber and Hollowhead walks upto the altar, he says "just another tomb" (grave). There's somethin on the other side of that mural, i'd put a tenner on it! But what? Also, Ruhaniya is right, the engineers, in the hologram, run into the ampule chamber, but there is no sign of their bodies inside the room? The engineers that Milburn and Fifield discover are not in the ampule chamber, so where did those engineers go?

They legged it up the shaft that's above the Big Head (check out the graphic at 1:02:30). But I'd like to think it's a door with something unspeakably nasty behind it.

Actually, yeah ... why would the Engineers run TOWARDS the ampule room at all? It's a sealed chamber, right? We know this because when the humans breathed their filthy exhalation all over it, the murals started dissolving. Did the alien mural dissolve i.e. had it vanished in later ampule room scene with Milburn, Fifield and 'friendly neighbourhood arm breaker'? Cos, I'm thinking, "If it didn't dissolve, how could it slide open? Surely, its own severe embossment would be a handicap to a smooth vertical opening action..."

@Custodian, stop complicating things further, we have enough unanswered questions as it is! LOL But yeah why would the fleeing Engineers run into the ampule room, unless there was some way out of there, or another chamber/exit leading off of it! Just a thought, what if they went inside the giant head? It could lead to the level beneath!

@custodian "Actually, yeah ... why would the Engineers run TOWARDS the ampule room at all?" I was watching the movie again today. Looks to me that all the other engineers ran away through the corridor except one. This engineer stopped to close this door before he died and was decapitated by it. This room was probably the most important room in the entire facility/temple. I believe this room was breached by whoever killed the engineers and left the door open. Still, i don't understand why the security recording never showed the attacker...

Koujil, stealth, or erasure? Gah, the plot thickens, thicklier than thick.

"stealth, or erasure?" I believe erasure. There is green goo on that "security control panel" that David activates. It was clearly manipulated by something... sentient and smart. What is more puzzling is that the green goo is just like Xenomorph saliva/secretion from previous movies. There is a kind of screech when they first activate the hologram recording and they are clearly running away from whatever makes that noise... maybe the species on the mural?

Oh, wow, what ideas you have -- all the better to terrify you with, eh? :)

Anyone ever thought that maybe this mural was created when this was set as a true alien prequel? And you might note that in the movie you can't see the facehuggers in any shots of the mural. And if you can't see it in the movie much like a deleted scene it never happened. Or in this case we can't prove the facehugger is there in the context of the film. Just a thought.

In the theatrical version, when David touches the green goo on the door access panel, he rubs it together with his fingers and spreads it apart, it appeared to have tiny molecules swirling around. He looked at it closely and said, "Impressive..". I think we should be asking more questions about the Green Goo, Mural, and Green Crystal.

If you watch the film you will notice very obviously that the pups stop outside of any obstruction which is hollow on the door to the ampule chamber and the bridge etc. So if it was a door the pups would have hovered outside until it was opened. A looong time ago I thought that it was a door as well. I brought up what Holloway said. But Scott says in the commentary that Holloway says "This is just another tomb" because he's been discovering tombs through out his carrer and is upset that they are all dead and he won't get to meet his maker. And the Engineers didn't all run into the room. They kept running down the corridor. The other stops to shut the door, is overtaken by the infection and falls. His head doesn't burst becuase he's decapitated leaving him dead before it could run it's full coarse. As far as the mural, I believe Giger's original facehugger design painting was incorporated simply as an easter egg for fanboys and as a nod to Giger's original genius.

Correction...Ridley says they did run into the ampule chamber and that there was a trap door inside which the other engineers went thru. Perhaps my first instinct was right afterall. Doesn't explain why the pup didn't stop at it. However, if the mural was in fact the trap door you would think that the pup would be able to figure out it was a door.

@Koujilovesdrhell I have to disagree with you. Yes there is green goo on the control panel for the door, but i seriously doubt its related to a certain alien species leaving residue behind. Its not acid or it would have eaten through his glove/fingers it also isnt blood. You can tell because when he pulls his fingers apart it starts acting almost like a conductor, like there is some sort of power/electricity inside. I thought maybe it was just something like our battery acid here where the ship was sitting there for so long un used that the buttons started to erode and the electrical conductor behind them was seeping out. But I could be wrong thats just my theory. I think the part about the engineers running into the ampule room and also us never seeing them come out or their bodies not found inside + mysterious green crystal is very intriguing. It's going to be another mystery that keeps us occupied for a long time, just like the space jockey scene in the first alien. I mean they showed us the mural and the green crystal deliberately in the movie, which they could have left out. That means they want us to acknowledge its existence and ponder on how those two could be related.

@Engineering I would agree with you about the mural being a Giger-esque easter egg to fanbois, only if it had been more subtle. I mean the mural is huge and its more than just a mural, its not just a painting..its got a sculpture coming out of it. Which means the engineers who designed the ship wall/door...whatever it is, have encountered this type of xeno before. I just have a hard time believing its an easter egg considering how big it is and how obvious it is. Usually easter eggs are something you have to hunt for in movie, things that arent so obvious. About Holloway saying its just another grave, we dont know what context. We have no idea if hes talking about that room, i very well believe hes talking about the planet/ship. After seeing a recording like that, i can understand him. He just say what he believes to be his makers running in fear of something and then finding one actually dead...kind of a buzz kill lol. I do agree with the green goo that David finds "impressive". This needs to be explored more whether it being a conductor with some form of power/electricity inside or molecules moving around. The green goo when I think about it, I would naturally assume this is inside those big bubble like buttons that are in the navigation chamber control panel. I would think this kind of goo is inside those, it reacts to compression as in someone "pushing" them in to relay some kind of signal to something.

@Ta2punk...I wasn't saying the entire mural was simply a Giger easter egg. I was saying that the 2 images in each bottom corner that shows Giger's original facehugger design was an easter egg. The mural itself, as has been said by many of the filmakers many different times, is meant to infer that the Engineers worship the pure form of what the black goo creates. BTW...I've said it before but the green goo on the controls looks a lot like what comes out of franken-engineer's head when it blows up due to infection. Maybe an engineers head exploded and sprayed goo all over that panel.

Oh, about the queen. The structure on either side of the xeno head is only a slightly stylized rendition of the original queen's head plate from Aliens.

@Myrddin365 Im not sure if Ridley would pay tribute to the alien queen provided it wasnt even in the alien film he directed, it was something Cameron dreamt up and was horrible imho. A xeno queen...yeah like that would happen to a xeno, theyre killing machines not breeding machines. But who knows, maybe the black goo invaded someone and ended up changing into a queen based on the host.

YES, the goo on the switch. How long does that goo last, 2000 years?

Woah woah woah, Is that an image of an eye with a squigly like what happened to Holloway?? Geez that is cool. [IMG]http://i47.tinypic.com/28u2x3l.jpg[/IMG]

i dont think the alien/xeno-esque artwork in the ampule room is just an easter egg. There's too much of it. Also, various pieces show multiple facets of the lifecycle. there's to much implied by the artwork's presence for it to be meaningless. The giger facehuggers ARE visible in the film. In addition, one of the frescos on the ceiling (totally different piece from the bas relief) clearly shows a traditional Alien hand/arm and a traditional egg/spore. Both are visible in the film. The filmmakers cant just dump these images in the film for fun....otherwise, they would destroy their own bio-chronology. I think the filmmakers placed these pieces in the ampule room to provide clues (and they do!). @svanya: interesting.

Did you notice that on one of Prometheus trailer versions, instead of the Green Alien egg/crystal Holloway looks at, there's a container like the one used by the first Engineer to drink the black fluid??

yeah. noticed that. odd. why change the object on the altar unless one has a reason for doing so?