After making do with the first 45 second trailer since July, we finally have an extended look at T2 — the long awaited Trainspotting sequel. So far, we know director Danny Boyle brought the whole cast back — Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle — to revisit their iconic characters 21 years on. The film left the four shortly after their £16,000 heroin sale, when Renton makes off with the cash leaving Spud with a taste of the cash, Begbie in a crazed rage fit, and Sick Boy with nothing.
While there has been over two decades between the film and sequel, the Irvin Welsh novel the film was based on has spawned several sequels, so there’s certainly material for Boyle to draw from. In Porno, which picks up 10 years after the heroin deal, we learn Renton is off drugs and owns a nightclub in Amsterdam, Spud is sober and attempting to maintain a failing relationship, Sick Boy is broke and trying to get into the porn industry, while Begbie is newly released from jail and looking for his friends. Surprisingly, his psychopathic tendencies to appear to abate in Welsh’s recent novel The Blade Artist, which opens with him living in California with a wife and family and having found acclaim as a modern artist. Go figure.
Judging by the trailer, the film doesn’t stick too closely to Welsh’s sequels. From what we can tell, the gang are still in Edinburgh, though they haven’t seen each other in quite a while. The clip opens as Renton comes face-to-face with Sick Boy for the first time in decades, confronted with the question “So what’ve you been up to — for 20 years?” We’re wondering the same thing.
There’s certainly a lot of catching up to do, and if the fast-paced trailer is anything to go by, T2 will cover a lot of ground. The film certainly doesn’t linger in the past: Boyle and co. have embraced the 21st century, littering the teaser with contemporary buzzwords like Facebook, slutshaming, revenge porn, and Instagram. The world has changed a lot in 21 years!
T2 is out in the UK on January 27, 2017, and a week later in the US. If that feels like a lifetime away, check out what the main cast have been up to since the original was released in 1996 and read our interview with Trainspotting‘s author Irvine Welsh.
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Text Wendy Syfret