Trainspotting returns but what really makes a good sequel? Here are the rules

Trainspotting – that quintessentially 1990s film in many ways – is back. On January 27 we’ll get our first look at T2, director Danny Boyle’s sequel to his ‘96 cult classic. The whole gang are back, too: Renton, Spud, Begbie, Diane, Sick Boy…I still feel sad for poor old Tommy who, of course – SPOILER ALERT FOR SLOWCOACHES – died in the first film. But will that be enough to save this sequel?

The best thing I took from the trailer is that title, which cheekily references another iconic ‘90s flick, T2: Judgment Day. Other than that, the whole notion of a new Trainspotting fills me with…is there a word for a mild form of dread? Whatever that word might be, it’s what I’m feeling.

Sequels are often ass-awful and usually quite poor. I know this, because I’ve studied them to a degree that would frighten me if I had any remaining ambitions for my life beyond studying sequels.

And I’ve worked out the classic ingredients of the movie follow-up – a sort of how-to guide and set of rules for making one. So if you’re a film producer short on inspiration and long on chronic tax bills that need paying pronto, listen up…

Rule 1: Have a first film. You can’t make a follow-up if there’s nothing to follow. That makes sense, right?

Rule 2: Titles are crucial to any artistic endeavour. Like, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa wouldn’t exert quite the same hold on our imaginations if he’d named it “Hippie Woman Smiling Vacantly”. And in sequel titles, Roman numerals never fail. Which I suppose would make this Rule of the Sequel II.

Rule 3: Alternatively, fool the audience into thinking they’ve seen the first movie by using words like “revenge” and “return” in your title, e.g. Return of the Gruesome Avenger III, or Sleaze & Bullets II: Fat Larry is Back.

Rule 4: Many successful franchises just keep using the main character’s name over and over – Batman Goes to Zaire, Batman Needs to Pee So Badly, Batman Gets Old and Tired, and so on.

Rule 5: Come to think of it, use the word “franchise” in all promotional material: much classier.

Rule 6: Decide early on what your motivations are for producing this sequel. Is it to continue an expansive story that couldn’t be completed in one film, to reinterpret classic material, or to shamelessly cash in on Joe Popcorn’s gullibility and fear of the unknown? (It’s the third one, isn’t it? Yeah, it is.)

Rule 7: The poster tagline should start with “This time it’s (personal/war/whatever)” or “This time he’s doing it for (his girl/his child/his country/whatever)”. This creates a sense of continuity between the two films. It also confuses the soft-headed and vulnerable.

Rule 8: Try to isolate what exactly made the original such a magical experience: the universal themes, the ground-breaking effects, the fact that you hawked it like a demented preacher on every two-bit chat show on the circuit. Not forgetting the ridiculously gratuitous sex and swearing – the film was about a convent of silent vow nuns, for God’s sake.

Rule 9: If it worked last time, demographic research indicates there’s a 60-65 percent probability that it will work again. Just repeat what you did before, only spend more money – on bigger explosions, more tomato ketchup unconvincingly representing blood, an increase in the number of foul-mouthed nuns, etc.

Rule 10: Include some unfunny “knowing” references to its predecessors; Joe Popcorn needs a hand remembering sometimes. For inspiration, check out Bruce Willis’ “Yeah – story of my life” catchphrase from the Die Hard series.

Rule 11: Whichever cast member has gone on to greatest success probably won’t reappear. (Ewan McGregor clearly is an exception to this general rule.) To compensate, get some Z-list ham who vaguely resembles your star to fill in. If none are available, just say to hell with it and use someone completely different. Who can remember these things anyway?

Rule 12: Reunite the cast in the most contrived circumstances possible. Try these on for size and see how they fit: “I was sure I’d locked up the dinosaur enclosure after me!” “The killer virus wasn’t eliminated by that combination of kerosene and Fanta!” “He can’t have escaped…again! But it appears that he has…again!”

Rule 13: One of the main characters should now be a drunk and be fast asleep, head resting on the counter of a sleazy bar in Tijuana, at the beginning of the movie.

Rule 14: The true spiritual home of the sequel is the horror genre. This is because these flicks are usually produced for about half the cost of Julia Roberts’ toe-nail clipper’s salary, so there’s little financial risk for their Shanghai paymasters. It’s also because horrors are clichéd, vapid and utterly two-dimensional, pitting several cardboard cut-outs (unduly reckless, blandly pretty teenagers) against one big cardboard cut-out (mindless psychopath in rubber face-mask). The viewer knows what to expect time and again – the usual insult to the intelligence, in other words – and eat it up like the sheep-with-disposable-income they are. Strangely, this doesn’t seem to deter them from watching: and maybe that’s the real horror.