Trainspotting 2

[worldsgreatestsinner]

But if that was the case, why not just tell Begbie Renton was back in town when he came into the pub? I didn't think Sick Boy expected Begbie to be there, because if he'd invited him on the off chance Begbie would bump into Renton then surely he's putting himself in Begbie's line of fire because he'd lied to him earlier?

I just thought it was just another bit of nostalgia in the film, Begbie's been in prison for 20 years, he's now escaped and he goes to the club because it's the kind of place he would have been 20 years earlier,  maybe even an old haunt.

[Repeater]

Sick Boy didn't invite Begbie.

[mobias]

But if that was the case, why not just tell Begbie Renton was back in town when he came into the pub?

Because I think by that point Sick Boy was having doubts about wanting to do Renton over. I'd need to see it again. I was under the impression Sick Boy secretly invited Begbie knowing that he'd probably bump into Renton and since they were in a club in front of others would be less likely to murder him on the spot.

It seems highly improbable them all bumping into each other by chance on a night out.

[Repeater]

Nah Simon didn't set him up. There's no implication that that was on the cards, only your own assumptions. Doesn't make sense either as the two were in business (ostensibly), trying to set up the brothel & get that EU loan.

[Wet Blanket]

If Sick Boy invited Begbie, why is he surprised to see him at the club, and why is he ringing Renton to find out what's going on? And why would Begbie subsequently be mad at him, so mad he wants to knock him out with one blow from a comedy blackjack?

[mobias]

I'd need to see it again. I was certainly under the impression when I saw it that the whole thing was a contrived and set up by someone. It just seems slightly improbable, but admittedly not impossible, that Begbie goes out clubbing on his own and then happens to just by chance be in the exact same nightclub at the exact same time as Renton and Sick Boy.

[Pepotamo1985]

How bizarre, I just saw it and it had subtitles for me too.

The original was going to have subtitles for Yank/non-UK audiences but the team thought it would ruin the scene with subtitles in it, so they instead re-recorded their dialogue in the first 30 mins of the film, using softer accents, to attune audiences to Scotch.

[Repeater]

Nah man, I've watched it twice, never got the impression it was a up.

[Malcy]

Just back from it. Loved it. Think i'll go again next week.

Does anyone know the name of the song that was used quite a bit at the beginning?

[Beep Cleep Chimney]

Does anyone know the name of the song that was used quite a bit at the beginning?

This one? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPFtDcFNpV8

If so, it's on the soundtrack album.

[Malcy]

This one? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPFtDcFNpV8

If so, it's on the soundtrack album.

That's the one cheers. Better without the vocals mind!

[Van Dammage]

Saw this yesterday and enjoyed it a lot. Some questionable music choices but nothing that annoyed me really. The bit at the end of his new choose life speech was brilliant. "It amused us at the time anyway..." Or something along those lines.

Happy for

Spoiler alert

Spud

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too.

and surely not be quite so into George Best.

I'd say that was fairly realistic. I'm a lot younger than them two and I've still got a poster of Best on my wall and fairly regularly look up youtube videos of him when I'm bored. I think growing up around older football fans (i.e parents, or Renton's dad in his case) and hearing all about how he's the best player ever and he's this or that would pique their interest at a young age. As well as that, he played for Hibs, which Renton and Sick boy both support. If George Best played for a small club like that (even after his prime, and while they would have been quite young) it would definitely be talked about by a lot of the supporters that they would have been around and it would be a big part of the club history. "The best player of all time played for our club before!" and that sort of thing. Also there's the whole nostalgia, clinging to the past thing that Veronica mentions after they go on about Georgie for a good 5 minutes.

[Repeater]

They nicely sum up the adoration of Best, as you outline, when Renton explains that he went to the game and couldn't even see him, but it was still a seminal experience for him.

[Custard]

The funniest bit from Renton and Sick Boy's nostalgia night was "there were no fat people then! Look, no fat people!"

Admittedly I was the only person who laughed, but I currently look and feel like a pregnant woman, so I reckon that's fair enough

[Repeater]

That thought occurred to me too, about there being no fat cunts in the 70s... awful though, judging by tv, scottish people all looked thin, ugly and badly dressed.

[New Jack]

I thought it was linear enough, I didn't question the characters' motivations but I am a bit of an Irvine Welsh obsessive so was following along in my head bits from the books.

I think I would have liked Sick Boy's extortion scheme played out a bit more... from Porno he does something similar when he nicks Cousin Dode's card, and extorts the fellow doing cocaine he gets on the CCTV.

I see where they chopped up concepts like that from the characters, for this.

Begbie's arc is basically the same as Porno. Spud is similar enough. Shame no Nikki or Juice Terry!

[CaledonianGonzo]

While obviously a reference to George Best being at Hibs, it's also a callback to Sick Boy's 'having it and losing it' philosophy from the first movie (the scene where they're in the park with the air rifle).

[Endicott]

The one thing that didn't sit right was the timing.  The first film is set in the late 70s, early 80s I think.  So this film should be set around the millennium.  But it was about now, with lots of references to Snapchat and Twitter.
I can easily forgive it though.

To further go on about this, there's a bit in the first film where Renton says that drugs are changing, which then cuts to them in a rave club where everyone is obviously taking e.

Renton says Tommy died aged 23 and I think we can assume they are all the same age as they met at school, except Begbie being a year older. Renton is now 46 so if you add 23 to 1989 you get to 2012, making the social media references just about OK I think (although Snapchat was born in 2011 and I don't recall if it was the instant success that it has become now).

[New Jack]

The book is set in 86

The film is set in 96

Drugs did change, try research chemicals!

T2 is set now?

[momatt]

The book is set in 86
The film is set in 96

Ah that makes sense.  So I'm both right and wrong.

T2 is set now?

Pretty much.  They go on about Twitter and SnapChat and that.  So pretty recent.

[greencalx]

We finally got round to seeing this last night (taking advantage of a rare babysitting opportunity). The original film was quite pivotal in my appreciation of how exciting cinema can be - before its release I had mostly been subjected to overlong, po-faced Hollywood shite - and it was thanks to the wave of British indie films in the late 90s that I realised there was other stuff out there. Despite this personal affection for the original, I never held it in some sacred cow status, and was consequently reasonably relaxed about the prospect of a sequel, even if it turned out to be utter shite.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, though I think it somehow manages to rely completely on the original while being quite different to it in many respects. The whole film seemed somehow slicker and more played for laughs. This film is perhaps more open to the accusation of glamourising drugs than the original: for example

Spoiler alert

Spud throwing up in the plastic bag was comic in a way that Renton's detox in the original most certainly wasn't

[close]

. But overall, if this film's about anything, it's probably about being middle-aged and the realisation that youth is lost on the young (although perhaps that's me just projecting my own mid-life crisis onto the movie). On balance I don't think it's as good as the original - I remember being particularly affected by Tommy's storyline in the original, and the brief shot of him standing outside the locked-up video store (the last time we see him well) has remained with me to this day. I don't think there are any comparable threads or moments in the follow-up that will affect me the same way.

Nevertheless it is a lot of fun, perhaps suffers from a few too many storylines jammed together in a small space (for example, as noted above, the extortion thread just runs out of steam; it might have been good to have seen a bit more of Begbie's wife and child; I think everyone would have liked to have seen more of Kelly MacDonald, and so on) but at the same time it already felt a bit long at two hours relative to the svelte 90 minutes of the original. If we're going to get grumpy about stupid plot devices

Spoiler alert

I found it hard to believe that forgetting to put his clock forward for British Summer Time could lead to Spud's unwinding, particularly as one would have felt Gail would have stood beside him, given that she was willing to forgive being coated with shit in front of her parents... also this level of dumbness sat uneasily with his conversion to an eloquent narrator later in the movie

[close]

. However, this seems a bit unfair given that I think these are not films to be taken literally.

It was nice to see Edinburgh putting in a bit more of an appearance than the original. Did anyone figure out the location they used for Port Sunshine? I think they must have had to go out of town for that, due to a dearth or working railway lines in the city (ironically enough). Likewise I couldn't work out if the grim tower block could be in Edinburgh. It reminded me of the block at Sighthill that was demolished a few years ago - and I think most of the Edinburgh blocks have either been demolished or refurbished by now (though it's fair to say I tend not to pass through Wester Hailes or Muirhouse that often, or, indeed, ever...).

[Repeater]

Aye, second time I watched it I thought it did drag a bit, from the nightclub scene on. As for the extortion storyline, I seen that as a vital part of the overall story - their loss of the proddy pound etc. As for Spud, I'm certain that for him, if anything can go wrong, it will...

[kidsick5000]

Really did not like it.
Considering the first one had a definite through-line about Renton escaping, what was the story here?
And while there are a few really good shots here, there were a lot that looked lit and shot like some basic tv drama. Some scenes looked like a bank infomercial of Mark And Simon Start a Small Business.

Lee Miller and McGregor have far too Hollywood-ised bodies for these roles.

And did you see James Cosmo act Ewan McGregor off the screen with the briefest smile?

[mobias]

Did anyone figure out the location they used for Port Sunshine? I think they must have had to go out of town for that, due to a dearth or working railway lines in the city (ironically enough). Likewise I couldn't work out if the grim tower block could be in Edinburgh. It reminded me of the block at Sighthill that was demolished a few years ago - and I think most of the Edinburgh blocks have either been demolished or refurbished by now (though it's fair to say I tend not to pass through Wester Hailes or Muirhouse that often, or, indeed, ever...).

Someone told me Sickboy's pub was filmed in Grangemouth or near there. Not sure if thats true or not. I think the tower block that Spud lived in was filmed in Muirhouse. There's still a few pretty grim tower blocks there you drive past on the way to uber posh Crammond.

[Glebe]

Saw it yesterday... enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, it manages to pay homage to the original and be it's own thing, kinda. Also very funny in places (

Spoiler alert

the No more Catholics song, Raging Spud, Renton and Begbie's dawning realization in the toilet cubicles, etc.

[close]

). Delighted to see an appearance by

Spoiler alert

Gordon Kennedy (although naked and getting dildoed.)

[close]

And

Spoiler alert

The Rubberbandits video was another surprise

[close]

. Begbie is still a fucking terrifying fucker, although the

Spoiler alert

little bit of redemption near the end

[close]

was a mite unconvincing. On a side note, may I make the well-random observation that

Spoiler alert

Spud crawling around his room going cold turkey made me think of Gollum

[close]

.

Oh yeah, and I only copped that

Spoiler alert

Irvine Welsh was the dodgy goods guy

[close]

in the early hours of this morning (while sitting on the bog with the runs, in an oddly fitting way).

[Malcy]

[/Spoiler]). Delighted to see an appearance by

Spoiler alert

Gordon Kennedy (although naked and getting dildoed.)

[close]

And

Spoiler alert

The Rubberbandits video was another surprise

[close]

.

Will no doubt be drunk in the mentioned persons company in the coming weeks. Will have to be very careful not to bring that scene up in a 'so what was filming that in a room full of people like' kind of way! As for the Rubberbandits, talentless pricks with no place in a Scottish movie. Absolute soundtrack ruiner that. Removed it. Can't understand how two wankers with plastic bags on their faces managed to be popular. Horse outside, fuck off. What utter shite. Mind you having been subjected to Irish comedy i can understand how unfunny equals popularity.


Aaaaannnnyyyyway. Missed seeing this for a second time at the cinema. Had planned to as soon as i came out of seeing it but it was gone when i went back. Hopefully won't have to wait too long for the DVD. Was a bit mashed seeing it the first time, be nice to see it with a fresh head.

[Glebe]

Will no doubt be drunk in the mentioned persons company in the coming weeks.

Ooh. Please tell him from me that Absolutely is (absolutely!) one of the greatest things ever.

[Malcy]

Ooh. Please tell him from me that Absolutely is (absolutely!) one of the greatest things ever.

I agree & that's exactly what he will be doing that night! New series on R4 in June.

[Glebe]

I agree & that's exactly what he will be doing that night! New series on R4 in June.

Gumph!

[Malcy]

Gumph!

???

There was a list in a recent issue of Empire of all the books, short stories etc that the Trainspotting characters had been in. There was a dozen at least if i remember. Anyone read them? Worth a look?