Andy's Actual Age Is the Biggest Mystery of 'The Old Guard'
The Old Guard is the cinema-level latest action/thriller to hit Netflix.
The film is based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez, and follows Andromache of Scythia, also known as"Andy," (Charlize Theron).
We've figured out how old Andy's character from the film is.
Netflix kicks back with another international action thriller, The Old Guard, which you likely thought would resemble its previous Hemsworth-athon, Extraction, but realized was actually closer to The Expendables meets Interview with the Vampire. Confusing genre. Still some pretty decent action. (Can we get a Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth movie now, please? Our fight money is on Theron.)
The Old Guard, based on the graphic novel written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Leandro Fernandez, follows a group of immortal soldiers who heal Wolverine-style (though it’s unclear how they overcome explosions or missing limbs; do they, like, grow them back?). The power arrives randomly during an individual’s life and also disappears randomly, or when the plot calls for it. The disappearance is supposed to mean something, but seems to only mean someone is getting ... old.
Age becomes, then, a salient talking point throughout the film. We learn that two characters were vampire bitten—er, we mean, immortalized—sometime during the Crusades (so, anywhere between 1095 and 1492, though likely closer to the First Crusades). Another character became immortalized in the 19th century. And then there’s Andy, also referred to as Andromache of Scythia.
Andy is the oldest known soldier. She doesn’t remember exactly when she first realized her immortality, which seems odd.
(Other questions … Does time move slower for Andy since she’s so old? Does her brain stay its age forever, and if so wouldn’t she also be super smart and not just good at killing? And if you are super smart, why keep killing if all you want is to better humanity? Couldn't you learn everything there is to know about medicine and just, like, do experiments for hundreds of years? Also, why abandon Quynh when you have literally centuries to find her, and those Spanish ships couldn’t have gone THAT far out to sea? And can you really drown forever if your lungs are still full of water? Wouldn’t you just stay asleep?) We digress …
So how old is Andy?
The hint is in that word "Scythia," which Copley mentions toward the end of the film. The word also appears during the bulletin board credits.
Scythia was a nomadic empire located across much or Eurasia in what is now Ukraine, Russia, and Crimea. Like the Mongols, the Scythians were revered for their horse-riding and warring. Historians trace the Scythians as far back as the 8th century BCE. That would be almost 10,000 years ago, making Andy very old. The empire collapsed at the hands of the Sarmatians before 200 CE.
Theron's Andy is, therefore, anywhere from 10,000 to about 20,000 years old.
That makes her almost twice as old as the other oldest living organism on Earth, a Bristlecone Pine tree, which is about 5,000 years old.
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