Just for laughs...

The single biggest plot hole in Episodes 1 through 3 is how Zmi Skywalker died.

I understand they had to leave her behind on Tatooine when they had to save Naboo and defeat the Sith but that took a week or two at best.

Queen Amidala has enough money to buy the freedom of every slave on Tatoonine (there less than a hundred thousand people on Tatooine and only a few of them were slaves). The Jedi Council could have staged a rescue with relative ease. Obi Wan could probably save her single handedly if he really tried. 1) Jedi oppose slavery in general 2) Yoda himself identified Anakin's estrangement from his mother as a risk for the Dark Side and 3) Zmi Skywalker had an immaculate conception by the Force, that is a power the Jedi would want to study and protect.

Now let's say George Lucas and I are talking and he says that Zmi has to die tragically to push Anakin down the Dark Side. Fine. There is another problem in the prequels. No stakes. An expendable army of droids fights an expendable army of clones. Let Zmi Skywalker die as collateral damage from a Sepratist attack and that pushes Anakin down the hill of the Dark Side. In all the prequels we very rarely see civilians suffer in the war on screen.

All the screen shots of Coruscant look happy and prosperous in episode 1, 2, and 3. They don't have traffic reduced because of population loss or a struggling economy. No breadlines, no war protests, no war bonds rallies.