Omega and Bond

OMEGA has been firmly on 007’s wrist for nearly two decades now, reliably serving in its key supporting role and looking the part of the perfect spy timepiece through thick and thin since GoldenEye in 1995. The world's favourite secret agent is defined not only by his sense of adventure but by his role as the ultimate style icon – a combination that makes OMEGA and 007 perfect partners. Like the spy they honour, they are as robust and reliable as they are fashionable. Here we’ve provided each devoted James Bond enthusiast with the precise details of 007’s OMEGA sidekick in every film in the franchise since our début in 1995.

GOLDENEYE (1995): Pierce Brosnan took up the mantle of James Bond in a story of stolen satellite weapon technology, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and rogue agents. GoldenEye is a devastating device that can fire a pulse from orbit and wipe out a city – and its target is London. Time isn’t on Bond’s side, but an OMEGA watch is, in this case a Seamaster Quartz Professional 300M with a blue dial. When 007 is trapped in the villain’s armoured train, with the seconds ticking away before it explodes, Bond uses the watch’s built-in laser on the bezel to cut through the steel plate, enabling the British spy and the Russian computer programmer Natalya (Izabella Scorupco) to leap free in the nick of time. His OMEGA is also seen in the brilliant ‘Arkangel’ pre-credits sequence, again involving a very big bang - although this model is on a dark leather strap rather than a stainless steel bracelet - and then again later when it is used as a detonator (the control button replaces the normal helium-escape valve, a device used by professional divers in diving bells or other submersible who may be breathing “artificial’” atmospheres). Even treacherous Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean) has a Seamaster, such OMEGA watches being standard MI6 issue to 00 agents.
TOMORROW NEVER DIES (1997): Bond battles the machinations of an evil media mogul, Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), who plans to trigger a conflict between China and the UK in order to help the growth of his empire. Again, 007 is ably assisted by his OMEGA, which has been modified, not by Q this time but by friendly Chinese spy Wai Lin’s (Michelle Yeoh) techy equivalents. It incorporates a detachable remote controlled detonator, useful when Bond later sets up a booby trap using a grenade and a glass jar. The watch plays a more conventional role when 007 is summoned by phone by Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond). The agent claims he is “brushing up on a little Danish”, - who happens to be blonde - in Oxford, but M’s secretary insists he comes to London. He checks the time on his OMEGA and asks for an hour. “Make that thirty minutes”, Moneypenny says, very definitely wanting to spoil his fun. This time Bond has upgraded to the automatic chronometer version of the OMEGA Seamaster 300M with a stainless steel bracelet, which Brosnan’s Bond would stay with from now on. Incidentally, an X-rayed Seamaster also has a starring role in the opening credits.
THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH (1999): For his third outing as James Bond, Pierce Brosnan must protect the beautiful Elektra (Sophie Marceau) from Renard (Robert Carlisle), an ex-KGB man turned terrorist who is incapable of feeling pain. Renard is planning to increase the price of petroleum by detonating a nuclear device in the waters around Istanbul, destroying a new vital pipeline. The title comes from the family motto of Sir Thomas Bond – ‘Orbis non sufficit’ – who founded London’s Bond Street in the 1680s, and it dates back to Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Bond can be seen wearing his OMEGA Seamaster 300M in the Thames speedboat chase scene, where he in pursuit of ‘Cigar Girl’ (Maria Grazia Cucinotta), a cat-suited assassin. This Seamaster has built-in illumination – all models feature luminous markers and hands to make reading the watch in low light easier, but this is of a different order. That’s demonstrated when Bond and Elektra are caught in an avalanche, their life saved by an inflatable ski jacket and the OMEGA timepiece’s dial lights bring a welcome relief to the darkness. When Bond is trapped at the bottom of a nuclear bunker inspection pit in Kazakhstan, he unveils the OMEGA’s piece de resistance – a miniature grappling hook, fired by pressing the helium escape valve, attached to a 50-foot micro-filament strong enough to support 800 pounds.
DIE ANOTHER DAY (2002): Q: “New watch, this’ll be your twentieth I believe”. Bond: “How time flies”. This was a sly reference by Q (John Cleese) to the fact that Die Another Day was actually the 20th of the James Bond films. This outing saw 007 taking on the arrogant industrialist Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) who was working on Icarus, a diamond-encrusted space weapon that can concentrate sunlight. Graves is developing it with North Korea, which intends to use it to blast the South and re-unite the country. Bond uses the familiar model of OMEGA, the Seamaster 300M, with a few fresh modifications, including a detonator pin replacing the helium release valve (handy when you have a supply of C4 explosive that needs to go off), which is controlled by twisting the bezel. The laser which Bond uses to cut through the ice at Graves’ HQ is newly positioned, too, shooting from the crown of the watch and activated by pressing on the actual face. The film also marked the first time that OMEGA issued a limited edition watch, a Seamaster, to celebrate both the film and the 40th anniversary of the franchise.
CASINO ROYALE (2006): “Beautiful,” says Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) of Bond’s watch as they hurtle by train through the countryside of Montenegro. It is indeed beautiful, a blue OMEGA Seamaster 300M, but with a Co-Axial escapement, a subtle update of the earlier models, but one which contained no gadgets at all. Daniel Craig was the new James Bond and this 007 was in the business of taking down the villain Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) over the gaming table at the casino in Montenegro in order to financially embarrass him with the terrorist organisation he is working for. The straightforward timepiece signalled a new, stripped-down version of the agent, where fists replaced lasers. However, to compensate there was an extra OMEGA – a rubber-strapped, black-faced Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M Co-Axial Chronometer with an impressive 45.5mm diameter case, which is seen for the first quarter of the movie, before it gives way to the Seamaster, which is seen right up to the very final scene when Craig, standing over his quarry, utters the words “Bond. James Bond”.
QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008): Quantum of Solace is unusual in that it is a direct sequel, with a distraught Bond still seeking vengeance for and answers about Vesper Lynd. This leads him to the diminutive but deadly Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), who is exploiting the shortage of water in parts of South America. Bond has help from the equally grief-stricken Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who also has a personal bone to pick with Greene. Again, gadgets were eschewed, but it comes with a very cool and classic black dial and bezel version of the Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M Co-Axial chronometer, slimmed down slightly with a 42mm diameter case. You can see this very clearly in one of the highlights of the movie, the opening car chase along the shore and in the hills above Lake Garda, where Bond in his Aston Martin DBS has to outrun a couple of Alfas. The DBS is a mess, the Alfas even worse, Bond and the watch might have been shaken around a little, but both are still in perfect working order – and the Seamaster stays on 007’s wrist for the rest of the movie.
SKYFALL (2012): The past finally catches up with both Bond and M in SKYFALL, a film suffused with meditations on mortality of friends and colleagues, which deftly adds to the mythology of 007 without losing sight of the essentials of a Bond film – especially in the action sequences. It’s all change again on the watch front this time, but with evolution rather than revolution on the cards. In this 23rd outing, Bond wears the OMEGA Planet Ocean 600M, OMEGA Co-Axial calibre 8500, 42mm, steel-on-steel (solid steel bracelet and case, but again with a black dial and bezel). This incorporates the latest self-winding chronometer movement, the 8500, with a 60-hour power reserve, although it’s hard to believe the hyperkinetic Bond could ever stop moving for that long. As the name suggests, this watch will operate at depths of 600M (2000ft – the current world record for the deepest SCUBA dive is 330m or 1,083ft, so it’ll cover most situations Bond might find himself in). The second OMEGA featured in SKYFALL, rated to 150m (500 feet) – still a specialist depth well beyond any recreational diver – is the OMEGA Seamaster Aqua Terra. Although a somewhat dressier watch than the Planet Ocean, with its ‘Teak Concept’ dial finish (vertical lines which echo the wooden striped decks of luxury yachts), this blue-dialled version shares the same movement as its more muscular sibling. This means both are incredibly shockproof and able to withstand whatever Bond – or more likely, his enemies – can throw at them.