Tim Allen wears a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona

Dean Parisot directed Galaxy Quest (1999), a sci-fi comedy that loves its source material instead of mocking it. Tim Allen plays Jason Nesmith, the William Shatner-adjacent former star of a cancelled Star Trek-style TV show whose washed-up cast still works the convention circuit. When a group of well-meaning aliens mistakes the show for historical record and transports the cast into real space combat, the actors have to actually perform the roles they have been faking for decades. Sigourney Weaver plays the bombshell communications officer, Alan Rickman the classically trained actor mortified by his catchphrase, Sam Rockwell the redshirt extra who lived through one episode, and Tony Shalhoub the chief engineer.

Hodinkee identifies Nesmith's watch as a Rolex Daytona ref. 16520, the so-called "Zenith Daytona," in white dial with contrasting black subdials on a steel Oyster bracelet. The 16520 launched in 1988 as the first automatic Daytona, ending the manual-wind, Paul Newman-era vintage design. The reference uses a modified Zenith El Primero movement (hence the nickname), with the Superlative Chronometer designation on the dial and the new polished center links on the bracelet. The 16520 is the watch that turned the Daytona from a racing chronograph into a luxury status symbol.

Nesmith has let the fame go to his head, and his wrist. He wears a Rolex Daytona to a convention. He wears it on the alien ship. He wears it in zero gravity. There is a joke in there about a man so invested in playing a starship captain that he wears the most terrestrial possible status symbol into actual space. The Daytona never went to space in real life, despite being the chronograph most associated with motorsport prestige. The 16520 in Galaxy Quest is the closest it ever got.