It's 1996 all over again as 'Trainspotting 2' films in Scotland

This morning, I walked into the office, fired up the photo server and saw photos from the Trainspotting 2 set in Edinburgh, Scotland. The shots of Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner on the run echoed the famous opening scene and the "Choose Life" monologue that accompanied it.

The next thing I knew, Iggy Pop's Lust for Life was playing on a loop in my head. And for a second there it felt like 1996 again, complete with Pokemon madness. My hand almost went to my throat to clutch the choker necklace that once rested there 20 years ago, and is back on trend.

Here's why Trainspotting mattered to Gen Xers and why you should check out the original and the sequel, due in February.

This is how you teach people to say no to drugs

You can't say Danny Boyle's gritty film didn't do its part to disabuse Gen Xers of the glamour associated with heroin use, which by 1996 had contributed to the demise of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and outright killed Sublime's Bradley Nowell and Blind Melon's Shannon Hoon.

If Ewan McGregor's character desperately digging in the Worst Toilet in Scotland for lost drugs didn't scare you off opioids forever, then the two scenes with the dead baby surely did the trick.

It gave us an early glimpse of future stars

Trainspotting gave the world the actors millennials would come to know as Obi Wan-Kenobi, Princess Merida,TV's Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Owen Hunt and Rumpelstiltskin.

Yep, Trainspotting helped catapult Ewan McGregor and Jonny Lee Miller to stardom and it was one of the earliest acting jobs for future Grey's Anatomy star Kevin McKidd. It also gave us Kelly Macdonald, who would later voice the heroine of the 2012 animated film Brave, star in Boardwalk Empire and the final Harry Potter film.

And that's not all. Once Upon a Time's Robert Carlyle played the baddie and Game of Thrones alumni James Cosmo (Night's Watch commander Jeor Mormont), was McGregor's dad.

The addicting soundtrack  

Of course, we've had it in the ear before. Trainspotting was our Garden State and OC mixtapes.

Lust for Life may be the best-remembered track but the trippy electronic soundtrack also included New Order, Brian Eno, Blur, Pulp and Elastica. My personal favorite: Lou Reed's piano ballad Perfect Day, which sounds like the plans for an epic day of playing hooky but also speaks to the late singer's own problem with heroin in the closing line "you're going to reap just what you sow."

See more shots from the set of Trainspotting 2 below.