What really caused Ashes Meltdown in Alien?

Rick. Do you mean that the Mother room was the forest and we didn't hear the door open (tree fall) like we did shortly before in the same scenr?

Yeah I get that, but I'm not sure how it's relevant.  The focus of the film is on Ripley uncovering something revelatory and we're finding it out as she does.  She's focused on that; we're focused on her.  She doesn't hear it so we don't.

It's the same sort of cinematic device as when someone looks around for the monster in the dark and it's nowhere to be seen, then a lightning flash shows it standing right next to them in defiance of all logic.

LOL yes dk......S.M is trying to go all technical on me.

It may have been a continuity error instead of a blatant mistake. I cannot find information stating whether it was deliberate.

I always thought that us not hearing the door open was intentionally done for the surprise factor. There are no other known 'silent door' errors are there? For this to be an error and be in this scene specifically is way too much of a coincidence for me to accept.

Indeed.

its most definitely a deliberate removal of the door noise opening and closing I believe. its not until ripley rests back in the chair that ash comes into view, thus surprising ripley and the audience. sometimes when we r so focused on one particular activity we can miss things going on around us and I think that's what is being portrayed here. ripley is so engrossed in finding out information that she doesn't realise someone has entered the room. the door does normally make a noise but its not a very specific loud clunk so could be missed

For another bit of "Ash/Door" spookery, how about after his confrontation with Ripley?  He quaffs the drink, leaves the infirmary, and the door closes behind him without (literal) digital manipulation. 

Actually all the doors close when Ripley tries to go to them and Ash does nothing but stand there.  Yeah that is creepy

Nice point and who knows if any minor damage can cause him to go a bit haywire, he is a Machine after all and if some parts of a Machine are damaged they can start to malfunction or not perform as they should.

But if the question is, did Ripley pushing him up against the Wall cause a malfunction that then made him try and force a Magazine down her throat...?

I will have to agree with SM on this and Ash realized that his plans (Special Order 937) could now well be compromised and so Ripley was expendable and she would have been a Thorn in the sides of Special Order 937 and Ash then had to eliminate her.

I think there's mundane explanations for the doors closing (ie. scope for someone to be pushing a button off screen).

Or Ash has Bluetooth.

Or did Ash suffer from a bit of what wrecked HAL9000's brain?

Lambert: You admire it. 

Ash: I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. (Italics mine.)

This has always suggested to me that Ash admired its pure unclouded instincts, himself being bothered by his own conscience, feelings of remorse and conflicted morality.  The way Ian Holm delivers the lines seems to imply something deeper: perhaps that Special Order 937 wreaked havoc with the synthetic consciousness that was 'Ash'?

Or then again, maybe it was just Bluetooth...  :)

I don't think Ash had a conscience or was capable of remorse of morality - just mimicking (possibly via Bluetooth :) ). I read that line as him having a go at the humans and how he saw them as deluding themselves than they were somehow better than the animal trying to kill them.  The Alien doesn't pretend to be something other than what it is.

It's a kind of mockery akin to David (or indeed Roy Batty's) use of "You people".

S.M You know Ash could have been connected to MUTHUR through Wifi and uploading the info to corporate on the Xeno the whole time.  Remember Call had a wireless modem, granted a couple of hundred years more advanced.  At the same time I have all sorts of gadgets at home connected to my network through wifi and bluetooth.

When Ripley enters "EMERGENCY COMMAND OVERRIDE 100375", is it possible that any attempt to override Special Order 937 is to be treated as a hostile act?

I'm wondering if Ash was programmed by W-Y with a "terminate with extreme prejudice" mode, prior to the Nostromo leaving Thedus, in the event that anything were to jeopardize the fulfillment of SO 937. 

"It's a kind of mockery akin to David (or indeed Roy Batty's) use of "You people"."

True, that. An interesting through-line across the years...and franchises. 

I can agree with the mimicry and would really expect the synthetics to be dead-pan and mechanical in their movements when not with humans, but a lot of the 'business' Holm does with the character cured me of that POV.  (The most chilling "android" moment in Alien for me is Ash's lack of expression as Dallas has his encounter with the creature.)

I rewatched Holm's scenes by himself to remind me of his performance.  The mimicry includes many unnecessary human gestures in the performance of his duties when no one is watching.

If the mimicry is so embedded in his programming, it seems that something certainly disrupted it for him to have exhibited such a restricted affect during his encounter with Ripley after SO 937 was out of the bag.

Was it a mechanic reason (damage) as has been proposed, or a breakdown in his mental processes resulting from possible conflict?  We'll never know, I suppose.

Ridley Scott's depiction of artificial humans in his films suggests some interesting assumptions on his part.  Curious that a comprehensive analysis hasn't been written yet.  Maybe with the coming movies and possibly more revelations on this topic, we might see such...or better yet, something in his own words?

Next time you watch the film watch Ash when Dallas tells Ripley and Ash to take the main airlock while he goes into the airduct.

Very interesting theory.

However, Bishop II in Alien 3 contradicts it.

Bishop 2 was human.

I'm sure it's been debated that Bishop 2 was an android.