Proof that nostalgia is not just a thing of the past

WHEN director Danny Boyle dubbed Trainspotting ‘Scotland’s Star Wars’, I must admit I groaned. For a start, I’ve never much liked Star Wars. I hate the clumsy storytelling, like ‘the Empire hates the Rebels’.

I yawn at its one–dimensional characters and endless spaceship chases. And I hate being pummelled with Star Wars merchandise, from children’s toys to limited edition lightsabers and pewter statues of Leia in her bikini.

The empire Star Wars spawned wasn’t about great storytelling, it wasn’t even about myth; it was about money.

As a series it clings to the idea that franchises aren’t supposed to be original. They are comfort food: the same recipe we liked before, served on a different day, perhaps in a fresher bun.

What did I think of the last Star Wars? I thought it was really loud, and quite difficult to sleep through.

Trainspotting is definitely not Scotland’s Star Wars, especially now that it has a sequel – because unlike Return of the Jedi, T2 really isn’t too bad.

If you liked Trainspotting, you should be just fine with Trainspotting 2. It has the same tone, humour, scabby bits, inventive flourishes and characters, except they’re a little sadder, older, more self-aware and with access to trams.

SCOTLAND doesn’t do sequels. The only one I can think of is Bill Forsyth’s revisiting of Gregory’s Girl – his 1980 comedy of gawky adolescent manners on the council estates of cumbernauld, with John Gordon Sinclair reprising gormless Gregory.

Like Trainspotting’s T2, Gregory’s Two Girls was a long time coming, some 19 years after the first film was released.

At the premiere I sat next to Auf Wiedersehen Pet’s Jimmy Nail, who was very chatty and friendly until he saw my reviewer’s notepad and realised I was a journalist.

Alas Gregory’s Two Girls also ran out of craic.

It turned out that football, penguins and Italian lessons that went no further than ‘bella bella’ were a tough act to follow.

What’s admirable about T2 is that it harks back to the first film, while admitting how much things have changed. Nostalgia, it implies, is heroin for old people.

And with T2 already selling out cinemas across the country ahead of release on Friday, perhaps it’s worth revisiting some other Scottish icons, and giving them an update

The Broons: After enjoying a brief moment of stardom as the only family in Scotland to live in a carless street unblighted by wheelie bins, the Glebe Street family have used their DVD sales to move out to Broughty Ferry, to a new estate designed by hot new architects Nero and Zero.

Shrek: Following the divorce from Princess Fiona, the diet is in tatters.

Local Hero: The village of Ferness enjoyed 30 years as an area of outstanding environmental importance, thanks to the decision to create the Happer Institute there in 1983 – before the Scottish Government intervened to approve a change of use and agreed to establish an oil refinery after all.

Scrooge: The extremely wealthy Glaswegian waterfowl continues to store all his gold coin s in a big room so that he can swim about in them, quacking with glee.

However, the family accountant Huey, Dewey & Louie hopes to persuade him to open his first PEP in 2018.