The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim has taken us back to Middle-earth on the big screen, bringing another story from JRR Tolkien's appendices to life.
Given that it's set 183 years before the events of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, we knew not to expect cameos from the likes of Frodo, Sam and Gollum. However, we knew Miranda Otto was reprising her role as Éowyn to narrate the new movie.
It was also revealed before release that Saruman had a part to play in the movie with archival recordings of Christopher Lee used for his role, rather than the kind of digital necromancy seen in Rogue One and Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
What you might not have realised, even after seeing the movie, is that The War of the Rohirrim also has two other Lord of the Rings stars in cameo roles – but not as their original characters.
To explain who, we need to go into some mild spoilers, so look away now if you haven't seen the movie yet.
The War of the Rohirrim cameos explained
During the siege at the Hornburg (later known as Helm's Deep in honour of Helm Hammerhand), Hèra discovers a secret passage which leads down deep into the Hornburg and out past the walls.
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When she's outside, Hèra comes across two orcs known as Wrot and Shank who are ransacking dead bodies for rings. "What does Mordor want with rings?," says Wrot in one of the movie's least-subtle nods to the original trilogy.
They'll never find out, as Helm Hammerhand arrives to quickly dispatch of the pair of them, and the Snow Troll they're travelling with.
But that's not the important part. The important thing for fans is that none other than Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd are voicing Wrot and Shank respectively, which officially marks their second roles in the Middle-earth universe.
Want to see what Merry and Pippin look like when they're voicing orcs? Of course you do:
Those glorious images came courtesy of a behind-the-scenes featurette released by Warner Bros last month, which included brief footage of the duo recording their lines as Wrot and Shank.
We didn't know then that it was the orcs that they were voicing, but perhaps we always should have known from their expressions in the recording footage.
There are no other surprises for Lord of the Rings fans in terms of cameos, unless you didn't know about Saruman's return.
You'll be waiting the entire movie for it as it comes right at the end when Saruman, now the new master of Isengard, visits the newly-crowned King of Rohan, Fréaláf. Saruman says he'll be there if ever the King is "in need of assistance" – and we all saw how that worked out for Fréaláf's later successor Théoden.
There is a nod to Gandalf right at the very end, with Hèra off to see him as he had questions about Wrot and Shank's desire for rings. We never see Gandalf, but perhaps that will be for a future movie if The War of the Rohirrim is a success.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is out now in cinemas.
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
