Citizen Celebrates Star Wars Day with Four New “Tsuno” Chronographs

Well, Star Wars Day was this week, and I hope everyone reading this enjoyed the endless stream of jokes, memes, and obscure movie references that were likely inescapable on May 4 (personal favorite: while driving on a major interstate highway on Wednesday evening, I spotted a DOT highway message board that read “The Kessel Run in 12 parsecs is too fast – watch your speed”). As someone who grew up watching the original Star Wars films through childhood, excitedly stood in line for the prequels as an adolescent, and approached the sequel trilogy with some trepidation but ultimately came away satisfied, I really enjoy that once a year we celebrate a fake holiday almost entirely online, and for a whole day it feels like some of the nerdiest aspects of pop culture are adopted by the masses. One way to tell that Star Wars Day is actually kind of a big deal is that a large watch brand like Citizen is set to capitalize on it for the second year in a row with a set of novelty Star Wars watches. Let’s take a look. 

Many of you will no doubt remember last year’s set of Citizen Ana Digi Temp watches released on Star Wars Day, and designed to pay tribute to characters and key set pieces from the franchise. These watches, as novelty watches go, remain some of most charming movie or character derived collectible watches I’ve come across. I think that’s mostly down to the nature of the Ana Digi Temp watch itself, which really nails the retro-futuristic aesthetic that is a key element of the Star Wars production design. These watches are tributes and have a “souvenir” vibe to them, sure, but they also look like they could be props in the original films. The new series of watches take a similar approach using Citizen’s modern interpretation of their classic Chronograph Challenge Timer, a bullhead chronograph known as the “Tsuno” that feels like a relic from the 70s in its approach to sports watches, with dials and case finishing meant to evoke familiar elements from the Star Wars universe. 

Star Wars droids are an obvious reference point for a Star Wars novelty watch since they are inherently mechanical, so it’s no surprise that two of the watches in this four watch series are based on R2-D2 and C-3PO. The C-3PO watch, naturally, is yellow gold plated, and the R2-D2 watch has a dial design meant to mimic the droid’s panel construction. The other two watches in this year’s batch use the Dark Side of the Force as inspiration, with designs based on Darth Maul and Darth Vader. Both have black coated cases, with the Maul watch featuring a fairly on-the-nose representation of that character’s distinctive facial features, with chrono pushers at 11:00 and 1:00 evoking his yellow horns (it feels like this specific feature might have been the reason for using the Chronograph Challenge Timer as the canvas for these designs). The Vader watch might be the most high concept of the four. For this one, the chronograph seconds hand is blue on the counterweight and red through the body, matching the colors of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsabers as a Jedi and later as a Sith. The sub registers on the Vader watch have also been designed with elements from the character’s armor. 

In terms of specs, all of these watches are stainless steel and 38mm in diameter. They run on Citizen’s Cal.0510, a quartz chronograph movement, which is accurate to 15 seconds per month with a two year battery life. All watches also feature sapphire crystals and casebacks with the Star Wars logo as well as an engraved representation of the watch’s character. 

All of the new “Tsuno” Star Wars chronographs will be available later this fall, with retail pricing set at $375 for all but the R2-D2 variant, which is priced at $350. Citizen