as Independence Day, Aliens and First Contact, is a marriage of classic fears of national invasion and the loss of personal identity. Release 1996 marked the 30th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. The franchise was on rocky ground; ratings for Deep Space Nine and Voyager had shed millions of viewers, being bested by Hercules: The Legendary Journeys as the highest-rated syndicated series. Some fans remained upset Paramount cancelled The Next Generation at the height of its popularity, and Generations was a commercial success but not critically praised.First Contact was heavily marketed, to an extent not seen since the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Several novelizations of the film were written for different age groups. Playmates Toys produced six and nine-inch action figures in addition to ship models and a phaser. Two "making of" television specials premiered on HBO and the Sci-Fi Channel, as well as being promoted during a 30th-anniversary television special on UPN. The theatrical trailer to the film was included on a Best of Star Trek music compilation, released at the same time as the First Contact soundtrack. Simon & Schuster Interactive developed a Borg-themed video game for Macintosh and Windows personal computers. The game, Star Trek: Borg, functioned as an interactive movie with scenes filmed at the same time as First Contact production. A video game adaptation of the film was also announced by Spectrum HoloByte, and would have taken the form of a real-time strategy game set entirely on the Enterprise during the Borg takeover, though it was never released. Paramount heavily marketed the film on the internet via a First Contact web site, which averaged 4.4 million hits a week during the film's opening run, the largest amount of traffic ever on a motion-picture site. The film premiered on November 18, 1996, at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The main cast save Spiner were in attendance, as were Moore, Braga, Jerry Goldsmith, and producer Marty Hornstein. Other Star Trek actors present included DeForest Kelley, René Auberjonois, Avery Brooks, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, Terry Farrell, Kate Mulgrew, Roxann Dawson, Jennifer Lien, Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang and Robert Picardo. After the screening, 1,500 guests crossed the street to the Hollywood Colonnade, where the interiors had been dressed to match settings from the film: the holodeck nightclub, part of the bridge, a "star room", the Borg