Citizen Is Releasing Two 'Star Wars' Watches Today, the Fourth of May, for No Apparent Reason
Today’s challenge is going to be a tall order: getting all the way through this story without referencing the date and using the meme-worn phrase. By the time you read this, you may have chuckled at the first of hundreds of Star Wars memes on social media, tittered at the second, and thrown your phone at the wall at the third.
At least with Citizen, which has played on the "today’s date" thing before, you get something pretty cool to show for it. Because today comes the latest in a line of retro Ani-Digi Temp watches (meaning watches that combine both analog and digital displays and an additional temperature readout) that date back as far as the early 1980s. So far, so retro. But these are different because they are also inspired by Star Wars.
The new watches number six in total, each based aesthetically on a key character or element in the original three-movie franchise. The first two, which are available now, are the Rebel Pilot and the Trench Run. You’ll have to wait until fall for C3P0, R2D2, Darth Vader, and Boba Fett watches. Citizen has a large range of analog watches inspired by the Star Wars franchise on its books, but the Ana-Digi Temp is the closest the brand comes to a perfect nostalgic fit. For our money, the gold C3P0 version is the one to go for. But if you can’t wait till fall, go for the Rebel Fighter.
Every serious watch collector has a McGuffin watch, a watch so singularly outside his or her field of collecting that it just belongs. Were another company to attempt this tie-up, it might fall flat. But with Japanese brand Citizen’s bona fide history in the geeked-out, ani-digi world during the golden age of the original Star Wars trilogy, these are collectors’ items for multiple reasons.
For while the Star Wars nerds will no doubt sign up for this edition in droves, true watch lovers will have good reasons to be interested in this very unique time piece. While it positively reeks visually of the 1980s—reasonable; it debuted in 1982—the Ana-Digi Temp was also, at the time, a hugely groundbreaking watch, representing the pinnacle of the miniaturization made possible by the Japanese quartz and microprocessor revolutions. It offered a new, multifunctional approach to timekeeping that included two separate analog time zones, a temperature gauge (Celsius only), digital time, plus an alarm and stopwatch. Something befitting the Resistance (or the Empire), indeed.
Here's a preview of what's coming this fall:
R2-D2 Ana-Digi Temp Watch
Boba Fett Ana-Digi Temp Watch
C-3PO Ana-Digi Temp Watch
Darth Vader Ana-Digi Temp Watch
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