Star Wars:The Secret Message On Poe Dameron's Vest Has Been Revealed

Now this is the kind of ridiculous Star Wars obsession that we fully endorse around here. We love our insane fan theories as much as the next people but what we really love are cold hard facts. Things that can not only be seen, but tested and proven. Real, true-blue Easter eggs. Now, somebody has answered a question about Star Wars: The Force Awakens that we didn’t even know we should have been asking.

If you’ve seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens say, four or five times, you probably noticed little details that you missed on the first couple viewings. One mildly obsessive Tumblr user, who fittingly goes by the user name @youneedapilot noticed something that was written on Poe Dameron’s flight vest and wanted to figure out what it said. And it turns out the rather funny answer is:

PULL TO INFLATE

If you check out the image up top, you’ll see some apparent gibberish below the Resistance logo on the outer vest being worn by Oscar Isaac. That gibberish is actually called Aurebesh and it’s the most common written language in the Star Wars universe. Yeah we know you knew that, but somebody else doesn’t. At first, translation seemed difficult as the symbols did not appear to match the existing alphabet for the language… until it was realized that the letters were actually upside down and backwards, so that the person wearing the vest would be able to read them. Once that breakthrough was made the translation was a simple one

Mystery solved! It’s a goddamn life jacket. We can’t decide what we love more about this. The folks at the Lucasfilm prop department who created the vest in the first place, complete with an accurate warning label, written in a way appropriate for its function, or the noble person who took the time to translate the message so that we could see the level of detail that the prop department had gone to. The mundane level of the message somehow adds to its beauty. If it had been some sort of secret message to fans that wasn’t part of the movie it would have been a fun Easter egg, but little more than that. Now, this is about the people involved in the film trying to create a fully realized world. This is awesome.

Of course, now we have two problems. One is that we now want to go back and find every other written word in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and try to figure out what it says. The other problem is that now all we can think of is Biff Tannen looking at Poe Dameron and saying, "Dork thinks he’s gonna drown."

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.