EDINBURGH, Scotland (Reuters) — Fans and stars braved freezing Scottish weather to flock to the premiere of T2 Trainspotting on Sunday, the sequel to the era-defining story of Edinburgh drug addicts Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and thug Begbie two decades on.
Trainspotting tracked the sordid and tragi-comic side of Scottish street life via the friends’ drug-addled criminal activity to a pulsating soundtrack. The 1996 film won huge critical acclaim and gave voice to a largely unknown section of British society.
Like the first film, T2 Trainspotting contains elements of shameless fun, heart-racing sequences and excruciating moments. But it is essentially about the nature of friendship, getting older and the far-reaching consequences of a risky youth.
”I know it’s a decent enough film to stand beside the other one,” director Danny Boyle said at the world premiere in Edinburgh on Sunday (January 22). Explaining that it’s been 21 years since the first film because he was waiting for the right script.
Trainspotting won a cult following and propelled the careers of all its cast headed by Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle. It also launched novelist Irvine Welsh and director Danny Boyle who went on to win a clutch of Oscars for “Slumdog Millionaire” and directed Britain’s Olympics opening ceremony.
“(The script) was clever and personal and emotional and we were thrilled to get to play these people again. There’s something about them that we feel that we know them, that they are friends of ours,” McGregor, who plays anti-hero Renton, told Reuters.
Welsh, who wrote Trainspotting and Porno, the sequel that this film is loosely based on, told Reuters he preferred the second film to the first.
“The first one is a big energy rush and … it showed people a world that many people didn’t know existed at the time,” he said.
“This one is much more layered, it’s much deeper. It still has that visceral kind of energy but it kind of unravels.”
When asked if there might be a third movie and if so would fans have to wait another 20 years, he joked:
”Well not in another 20 years, really I am surprised I am actually still here now – I am not going to be here in 20 years, or not in any kind of serviceable form, so I am hoping that if we do another, I would hope it would be within a kind of five year timeline rather than a twenty year time line.”
