Hot on the heels of Ewan McGregor bringing his new film American Pastoral to Edinburgh just last night, we now have the trailer for his next film, Trainspotting 2, released just this morning.

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As an actor McGregor is well known for having starred in the first film, and along with Star Wars it is probably Renton who propelled him to the international film star status he now enjoys.

Here in Edinburgh we became used to hearing about filming of various scenes which will be used in Trainspotting 2 over recent months. They would be in Muirhouse Shopping Centre one day and the Grassmarket another night, and we just accepted that we would have to wait till the film was finished.

Now the trailer’s out – so what do we already know about the movie (which is not released till 27 January 2017)?

It’s still based on a book by Irvine Welsh.

There are still references to drugs.

There are many cross-references to the original film.

The film features original cast members Robert Carlyle and Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner and Simon Weir.

It is directed by Danny Boyle, and so was the first film.

It deals with the  20 year time gap since the last film which was released in 1996 directly… “What’ve you been up to for the last 20 years?”

And the main message is once again “Choose Life!”

But the best bit for us living in Edinburgh is spotting the locations.

The film features Edinburgh fairly prominently with Arthur’s Seat, a tram on Princes Street, King’s Stables Road, the Grassmarket, what looks like Parliament Square and what looks like a block of flats in either Leith or Gilmerton all in the trailer. (where is the block of flats? Do tell if you know!)

And if this is not enough Trainspotting for you this morning, then watch the trailer for the original 1996 film:

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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.