why is it that in Revenge of the Sith and Attack of the Clones, anakin's flirting is awful. it's so bad and horrible and eugh. but then in the zygerria arc, HIS FLIRTING IS GOOD. WHAT HAPPENED THERE????
Well, I wasn’t quite expecting this in my inbox, anon, but I’ll try to give a good response.
So, in AOTC and ROTS, Anakin’s flirting is directed toward Padme, who we all know he marries after the First Battle of Geonosis. This probably plays a key role in why it comes across the way it does — Padme is former-Naboo royalty and the current Naboo senator. Anakin is maybe trying to up his game and sound more classy around her because of this, no matter how comfortable he gets with her. As we know he has a streak of trying to gain approval from others (Obi-Wan, Palps, etc), this could be his way of trying to show that to Padme.
In Zygerria, however, we have some differences. First, that his flirting is not aimed toward Padme. Granted, it’s still the Zygerrian ruler, and he’s trying to, in a sense, gain her approval. The key difference is that, after this moment/mission, he won’t continue to ponder on the moment and try to evaluate what he needs to change for the next time like he probably does with Padme. Once it’s over, he’d have more important things to think about — like when he’ll next see Padme, the next campaign, repairs to his arm/R2/other machines or droids. With Padme, he’s constantly trying to outdo himself, to keep her approval. He’s going to see her again; he’s not going to be on Zygerria again if he can help it. I wouldn’t be surprised if these things carried over to any other time he needed to flirt for a mission (not that we see any).
Additionally, there’s also the fact that Anakin’s an awkward 19-year-old in AOTC (this coming from an awkward 19 y/o). In modern-day perspective, he’s about a college freshman or sophomore, with the additional fact that he’s never really flirted with anyone before this. Also, as part of the whole “trying to gain approval” thing, he’s really nervous around Padme, at least at first, in AOTC, which definitely plays a contributing fact. Since somehow Padme was charmed by it, that became his go-to move with her.
And there’s always the fact that George Lucas tried to make the prequels sound too Shakespearian (same with the OT, they just improvised a lot more, IIRC); he tried too hard on his dialogue and a lot of stuff comes across awkwardly bc of Lucas and not any fault to the actors. TCW was written after the fact, as a “kids” TV show, so the dialogue off the bat is better flowing and just overall better.
TL;DR: It’s a mix of who the writers were and how Anakin acts around Padme v/s literally anyone else he needs to flirt with.
