Like the books the Harry Potter movies have grown progressively darker and more complex, as the initially stark moral universe of good and evil became increasingly shaded by prickly, often confusing questions of sex and death (including the death in 2002 of Richard Harris, the first Dumbledore, who was replaced by Michael Gambon). The books and movies have fed the imaginations of fans with a richly conceptualized, densely populated world of plucky school kids, giants, dragons, trolls and adult wizards, benign and malevolent, played by the cream of British acting. Meanwhile Harry, Hermione and Ron, as incarnated by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, have grown up before our eyes.
“I was on the train when I suddenly had this basic idea of a boy who didn’t know who he was,” Ms. Rowling once said, explaining the genesis of her creation as lightning hit her and then Harry. In the years since, the books and movies along with all the toys, games and even a Harry Potter theme park have helped show us that in today’s multiple-platform media landscape, a movie is no longer necessarily an evening’s entertainment but, in the case of those who came of age with Harry, that of a lifetime.  

Read the full piece at New York Times.