Cool Barbie XV - The Final Battle

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Cool Barbie XV
The Final Battle

Dominus attacks the Elven Emperor.
Written by HIM Emperor Jonathan I
Release date 24 December 2018
Runtime 13:00
Production code CB.XV
Episode chronology
Previous Cool Barbie XIV - The Invasion of the Eagle
Next Final episode
(Christmas minisode)

Cool Barbie XV - The Final Battle, abbreviated as CB.XV, was the fifteenth and final full episode of Cool Barbie produced by Austenasian Television Productions, released on Christmas Eve 2018.

Plot

The episode opens at the Elven Palace, a caption informing the audience that it is the location of the final stand against the conquest of Earth by Dominus. Xeaphon defends the Palace, running inside to inform the Elven Emperor that the grounds have fallen and that he is the only mage left. The Emperor states that Dominus has "defiled" the magical field of the Earth, but remains confident of his ability to "smite" him. Dominus appears within the throne room, and a magical duel between them breaks out. Xeaphon attempts to engage Dominus with the Staff of Forest Elves but is thrown to the ground, the staff breaking. Dominus overcomes the Elven Emperor, killing him. He turns towards Xeaphon, but the latter teleports away.

One year later, Cool Barbie teleports into the Senate room in the Land. She quickly runs under the bed, where King Yellow Bear, Sergeant Grey and some other toys are hiding. Sergeant Grey informs her that Colin completely drained the Thunder Stone and that it is useless, but that he has found the location of a book which may tell her about other powerful elemental stones which could help in the fight against Dominus. He gives her co-ordinates, and she teleports away to find the book. During this meeting, Cool Barbie asks to no longer be referred to as "Corporal", having quit Spectrum with Dominus having taken it over.

Meanwhile, Xeaphon breaks into a house and holds the occupant at gunpoint, revealing that he knows the latter to secretly be a Disciple of Kronos on the run from the secret police of Dominus. Xeaphon asks for the Blood Stone to help defeat Dominus, and the Disciple gives it to him. The house is surrounded by Dominus' police, who demand their surrender, but Xeaphon uses the power of the Blood Stone to destroy them.

In his palace, Dominus is receiving messages from the Prince of the Scourge, whose command ship has been in orbit around Earth for a month, and with whom he is negotiating the future of Earth. Dominus suddenly senses that the platoon of his police has been killed, recognising the magic involved as having come from one of the elemental stones. He resolves to find the stone to drain its power, and so sends a curt and blunt reply to the Scourge.

Cool Barbie finds the book she was looking for, and telephones Xeaphon, informing him that the Wind Stone is recorded as having been placed in a shrine on Mount Scellfa. He teleports to the mountain, but partway up is forced to his knees by an invisible force. A disembodied voice tells him to take the Wind Stone - which appears in front of him - and use it to defeat Dominus “and the threat he has summoned to this world.” Xeaphon takes the stone and informs Cool Barbie of the development. They resolve to meet at Dominus’ palace and defeat him by combining the power of the Blood and Wind Stones with that of the Staff of High Elves, which should be in his palace.

Xeaphon and Cool Barbie meet back up and teleport together into Dominus’ office. Xeaphon quickly takes the Staff and confronts Dominus, but instead of fighting back the latter reveals that the Scourge command ship will shortly fire on the planet. Xeaphon uses the Staff to remotely destroy the Scourge ship, but while distracted Dominus attacks him, knocking him to the ground. As Dominus advances, Cool Barbie pushes the Blood and Wind Stones up against the Staff, which fires a beam of magic at Dominus, destroying him and throwing his Troll assistant to the ground.

Xeaphon and Cool Barbie rejoice that all the main threats they have fought against - Colin, Kronos, their amalgamation of Dominus, and now even the Scourge command ship - have been destroyed. They leave to start the process of rebuilding the world after a year of misrule by Dominus. Behind them, on the floor, Dominus’ assistant stirs.


Continuity notes

  • In the opening scene, Xeaphon looks much the same as he did in the previous few episodes, but in the main part of the episode, set one year later, he has shaved and is now wearing glasses. Due to the relatively long time period over which various scenes were filmed, great care had to be taken to keep Xeaphon’s appearance looking the same for his scenes in the main part of the episode; when Xeaphon confronts the Disciple of Kronos to obtain the Blood Stone, Jonathan I wore a hat in order to hide the fact that his hair had grown since previous scenes (albeit ones set later in the episode) were filmed.
  • In the original script, dialogue was included explaining that Dominus was only able to overcome the Elven Emperor after having drained the power of Xeaphon’s Staff of Forest Elves. However, this line was not considered vital to the plot, and was left out during production.
  • Dramatic music plays during the fight between the Elven Emperor and Dominus. The last time background music was used in an episode was during CB.V (2010).
  • Throughout the film, Corporal Barbie is called her original name of Cool Barbie, having quit Spectrum. Other than being referred to as such once by Bubbles in CB.X (2015), the eponymous character had not actually been called by that name since CB.IV (2009).
  • The mysterious voice on Mount Scellfa addresses Xeaphon as VII, not as XVIII. This was a mistake in the recorded dialogue which was not noticed during editing. The subtitles on the YouTube release of the episode correct the line to say "Xeaphon XVIII".
  • Xeaphon mentions an otherwise unknown character named Heroura as providing a possible refuge for Cool Barbie should he be killed by Dominus. This line was included at the request of Princess Hannah, who created Heroura as a character representing herself within the fictional universe in which Jonathan I is represented by Xeaphon.

Production

CB.XV was pieced together from various shots and scenes filmed over a period of over three years. The earliest footage filmed for CB.XV were the shots of the Elven Emperor, filmed alongside the other scenes for the character (primarily for CB.X) on 22 July 2015. The footage of Dominus was filmed two years later on 27 July 2017, together with the shots of Xeaphon in the opening scene.

Carshalton Methodist Church was used as a set for the Palace used by the Elven Emperor and subsequently by Dominus (except for the establishing shot used alongside the caption, which is actually footage of Raynes Park Methodist Church). The willingness of the church to allow their buildings to be used for filming, both for this and for previous (CB.I (2009), CB.V (2010), CB.VIII (2014), and the Colin minisode and CB.X (2015)) episodes, was acknowledged in a notice of special thanks in the credits for the episode.

The scene in which Xeaphon confronts the Disciple of Kronos was filmed at Jonathan I's university accommodation in Chester, and the scenes in which he talks to Cool Barbie on the telephone were shot in the alleyway adjoining Commius Flats. The officer leading the platoon of Dominus' secret police is voiced by Lord John Gordon, who recorded his lines in September 2018 while attending celebrations at the Imperial Residence to mark ten years since the foundation of Austenasia.

“Mount Scellfa” (an anagram of Scafell, a mountain in the Lake District) was filmed on the hill behind the Hermitage of Our Lady of Miron, a church in Soria, Spain, which Emperor Jonathan I and Princess Hannah attended during the academic year of 2017-18 that they spent in the city. The footage used in the film was obtained on the third attempt at filming; two prior attempts filmed during snow for dramatic scenery could not be used due to the wind cutting out Xeaphon’s dialogue, but are included in deleted scenes and bloopers linked to in the description below the published episode on YouTube. This scene is the only footage in the Cool Barbie series filmed neither in Austenasia nor in the United Kingdom.

The last footage filmed for the episode - and therefore for the main Cool Barbie series as a whole - is the brief shot of Xeaphon picking up the Wind Stone. This was not filmed in Soria, as the prop had not been taken with them, but was instead filmed on 12 November 2018 in the garden of Chaplaincy House in the University of Chester.

Cast

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