The Old Guard’s Background & Every Immortal You Need to Know About

Based on the The Old Guard comicbook series written by Greg Rucka and and art by Leandro Fernández, the Netflix action-film “The Old Guard” is arriving on July 10. But before you watch the movie, you should know the details about the characters and their background who will feature in the film, this will surely hype your excitement or help you decide whether it's worth a watch.

The Background:

The Old Guard revolves around a group of veteran warriors from various points in history who all now living their lives as world-traveling mercenaries. But these are not just ordinary warriors, these band of warriors are immortal and living here from hundreds or thousands of years. They have survived through different circumstances, ended up dying in vicious battles before inexplicably coming back to consciousness, healing, and trying to figure out what it is that brought them back.

 

Though none of the Old Guard originally quite knew one another during their initial lifetimes, each time one of them first came into their regenerative powers, those that came before them were inundated with dreams that compelled them to seek the newest immortal out, wherever on the globe they might have been at the time.

 

They connect with each other through dreams, and sometimes dream of each other's faces for years before they actually meet in real life.
When someone tries to kill them, they just heal and keep going, and while they are not fully immortal and it is possible for them to die, they just have no way of knowing if the next bullet will be the one that kills them, if ever. They spend their days taking on mercenary missions while keeping a low profile.

 

The Characters:

Andy:

The main character in the story is an immortal lady goes by the name 'Andy' once knows as 'Andromache of Scythia,', who leads the group of quartet, as she’s the oldest (almost six times older than the next oldest memeber) and most experienced. While she’s still committed to their cause, time has worn down her heart in a way that it can’t wear down her physical body. Andy knows what she and the others are doing is morally sound as they make a point of going after war criminals, child traffickers, and other nefarious characters, but she’s grown weary of the fight. Time has taught her that no matter how hard they try and no matter how much good they do, eventually, people will act on their darker urges and that will only lead to more and more pain and suffering being unleashed upon society.

Joe and Nicky:

Joe (once known as Yusuf “Joe” Al-Kaysanioe) and Nicky (once known as Nicolo “Nicky” di Genova) met as soldiers on opposite sides of the First Crusade almost 1,000 years ago, and discovered their immortality when they couldn't kill each other time and time again. Their violent first encounter eventually blossomed and they found love in one another’s arms, despite the fact that they killed one another in the midst of a conflict in the past, which means they both have someone to spend eternity with.

 

Booker:

Booker (once known as Sebastian “Booker” le Livre) is a French veteran of the Napoleonic Wars who realized he couldn't die after he was hanged in the 15th century for desertion.

 

Nile:

Nile Freeman, a deployed member of the U.S. Marines, is murdered in front of her fellow Marines. As she wakes up in a hospital, she has absolutely no idea what is going on and how it happened, and the people she’s around are no more knowledgable. But what Nile doesn’t realize is that she’s part of something much larger than any military force, and she’s fated to join the Old Guard. Nile’s “activation,” is the inciting event that gives Andy a fresh reason for living. In her mind, Nile’s existence points to the possibility that there is a point to the Old Guard’s immortality, even if they can’t comprehend it in the moment.

As Nile realizes the implications of her gift, it's up to Andy and her crew to prepare her for the often brutal life of an immortal soldier as the leader informs her about her destiny in the coldest and most violent of ways.

 

The Story:

After centuries of committing themselves to taking out those who would hurt innocent people, the immortals find themselves in the present day living essentially in secret until one day an operation is revealed to be an elaborate setup. Someone out there knows who they are, and they want the secret to the Old Guard's immortality by any means necessary. Now, the fear is that they would try to capture and do all manner of monstrous things to the Old Guard in an attempt to learn how their power worked.

 

When the story begins, it's been ages since the Old Guard have met anyone else like them until the day comes when Andy’s struck with the first vision any of them has had in a good long while. Then they discover Nile, a young soldier who's just discovered that she can come back from the dead.

 

Andy who drank and slept her way through the ages with countless people out of a desire to feel alive again, finds a sort of companionship in Nile. Andy can never really verbalize it properly, and it’s not clear whether she fully understands it, but what Nile represents a kind of hope they’d lost grasp of as a direct consequence of having gone so long assuming they were the only ones like them that would ever come into existence again. Nile is the Old Guard’s new member, but she also embodies the potential that their family could grow beyond the four characters who open the series.

 

Now that we know all about the immortal soldiers from "The Old Guard", you might be wondering and thinking - what makes them immortal and how or why? and the answer for the question is simple - "we don't know." There is no mention of the origin of their powers of immortality anywhere, so if you are hoping to find the answer to this question in the film, I must tell you not to expect, at least in the first film of the series. Netflix has already acquired the rights for 3 films of the "The Old Guard" series.

“The Old Guard” is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and it stars Charlize Theron as Andy, KiKi Layne as Nile, Matthias Schoenaerts as booker, Marwan Kenzari as Joe, Luca Marinelli as Nicky and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Copley. The film is likely to be more focused around Charlize Theron and KiKi Layne with lot of action and blood.

The film will be available to watch, 10th July onwards on Netflix @ https://www.netflix.com/title/81038963

 

Below is the latest trailer: