IMO, Matrix Resurrection is a great example of a movie that didn't need to be made. Instead of doing the work to write a similar but original dystopian sci-fi story with good actors.. they said, "nah, let's just repackage a known brand, because that's easier on us, and more likely to get a big cash dump."
IMO, this isn't a complete read on what Matrix Resurrections actually is doing. To me, this is an artist taking a movie that they know doesn't strictly "need" to be made, but one that the studio was going to make one way or another, and using it as an opportunity to tell reclaim their creation in a sense. Making a statement on the state of pop culture and movies, expressing something personal with it, highlighting love as the most important theme of the original films. Whether it succeeds or not is subjective, but I applaud the ambition of even trying to do all of that with this movie. When it's so easy to imagine what the real "lazy" and cynical version of this would've been.
Lana Wachowski essentially covertly made a niche film under the guise of a franchise reboot. It wasn't made with the intent to spawn off endless more sequels and reboots. Whether you love or hate the film, it was clearly made with a specific artistic point of view. And in this day and age I welcome that with open arms.
This is just laziness. And what's worse... this kind of lazy storytelling is not without cost. They've pretty much destroyed the original Matrix movies now. At the end of Matrix 1, Neo said that he was going to show the world what the Matrix was. Did he? Would we really have been super interested in Matrix 3, if we knew that the stakes were, "Will Neo stop this iteration of the Matrix for a few years until the new, improved version comes back?" No, of course not.
The original Matrix still functions as a completely functional standalone film. Even as a fan of the trilogy, when I watch the original film, it feels standalone. Similar to watching A New Hope.
I don't mind that the endgame changed though. To me it just presents something more nuanced and interesting than humans= good, machines= bad.
Still though, Neo's sacrifice led to bigger and more long-lasting changes in the Matrix universe than the Star Wars OT characters' victories did if you want to compare legacy sequels. 60 years of peace, machines at war with each other, humans and machines working together, the real world humans reaching a better quality of life thanks to working with the machines. The movie took the care to demonstrate all of this. Sure, it alludes to a 'new power', but that's not really the focus. To me it struck exactly the right balance in terms of honoring the accomplishments of the original trilogy while advancing the world-building in a way that felt plausible. Obviously things aren't going to just be perfect forever, but they are demonstrably
better. This was refreshing as hell to me.
Compare this to Force Awakens though. What it ultimately boils down to is 30 years of New Republic, wiped out. Luke's attempt to restart the Jedi, a failure. It leaned so heavily into the cyclical aspect of the story that it neglected to give the ending of the previous films a proper sense of weight and meaning.
