Pirates of the Caribbean
There's something worse than having a favourite film. It's wanting to buy something for a friend or loved one who has that favourite film. You don't want to give them a poster you can pick up anywhere, or a Penguin Island mug with a blurry screengrab slapped across the front. You want something that reminds them why they love it so much in the first place.
Pirates Of The Caribbean is special like that. It landed differently when it first came out, and has somehow only embedded itself more into people's hearts since. Jack strolling up on that dock doing nothing but bleeding swagger and a crate ship remains a hell of a character introduction. The look of that world, rum and sea salt and cursed damn gold and that absolutely bonkers score – it sank its hooks in deep.
When someone you care about has a birthday coming up, or it's Christmas soon, or you're just trying to find that person that has watched the Black Pearl fly in scenes more than they can remember, you run into the same issue. That loves these films. But pirate merchandise is nearly always cheap, and more than that, obvious. You know it was licensed by a five minute google search and promptly forgotten about.
We didn't want any of that shit.
We wanted weird stuff that shows these movies are loved as much as we know they are. Items that feel like they'd fit in Pirates Of The Caribbean rather than the clearance section of some gas station. We considered the obsessive collector who wants something actually worthy of display, we considered the friend who quotes these movies unprompted and means every damn word, we considered the dads and moms who introduced their kids to Pirates recently and got to experience it all through new eyes again. If you find something in here we had a particular person in mind when we picked it, whether it was one of these people or someone special to you.
We didn't choose anything that was recommended to us because it was the first link on a google search, or because it matched a criterion. We asked if we would want it ourselves, if it spoke to the movies on some level, if we'd still have it out in five years instead of using it to prop a wobbly table up next Christmas. Keep that bar as high as you like when you're looking for gifts, the stuff that passed it is below. Dead men tell no tales, but quality pirates merchandise sings songs of enough.