8 Things You Learn Re-Watching Trainspotting

The eponymous "they" of unwritten filmmaking law once said that there should be a thirteen year gap between the zenith of a youth culture and attempting to make a film that reflects it.

This question can - however - be challenged on three fronts. One, where is the stack of films set for release this year chronicling the lives of kids as they navigate Blingland '04? Two, it's quite unlikely you'll have to wait until 2029 to see a cinematic interpretation of liberal-youth horror over Brexit, brought to the big screen. And three - Trainspotting is filmed in 1996, set in 1996 and perhaps the greatest capturing of youth culture in British filmmaking history.

And if there was one element that encapsulated this point so perfectly, it is Trainspottings carefully curated - and much-lauded - soundtrack. It captured the transformative music landscape of mid-nineties Britain as glam-rock icons shared album space with hedonistic dance duos and Britpop golden boys.

Urban legend states that Danny Boyle had his Eureka moment for the eclectic and now iconic collection as he was casually browsing the shelves of an HMV and stumbled on the sound of Underground. If he'd waited thirteen years those shelves would have been filled with Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas and La Roux and he would never have had the serendipitous encounter with Born Slippy.

Other Trainspotting-esque films have been made in an attempt to capture various eras of Britain's famous hedonistic utopia; it's drug-fuelled danceland. Human Traffic and 24-Hour Party People came close, but neither lived up to Trainspotting's perpetuity. And both were retrospective attempts.

Will that stand T2 in good-stead - given that its narrative has paralleled the twenty year gap since the original?