Yeah, but… The Matrix, though.

I’m one of those weirdos who didn’t think two and three were terrible. They didn’t live up to the original, but I didn’t think they completely ruined it.

But four. I can’t watch the first one any more without thinking about how Neo isn’t even “The One” by canon.

And I think The Wachowskis specifically intended to retroactively ruin the other three with Resurrections. (I know Lilly wasn’t so involved with Resurrections, but I doubt Lana would have gone way against Lilly’s wishes on it.) The whole movie felt like a cry of “fuck this, I don’t want to be making this, so I’m going to make it the absolutely worst abomination ever.”

(And there’s another one coming. 😬 )

Movies (and other fiction) largely work by setting up expectations and then building/working off of/subverting/whatever those expectations. When you fuck with those expectations in later films, it can make the earlier films no longer “work”.

I don’t disagree with you regarding Indiana Jones. The last two don’t ruin the first three. But the execution makes a big difference in terms of whether sequels retroactively ruin earlier films.