I watched the HP movies up to the last one, Order of the Phoenix and had not read any of the books. I feel books ruin movies, but after sitting in the dark over 2 hours The Order of the Phoenix was a huge waste of time and everyone I saw it with was like WTF was that? Basically w/o the books the movie just left so much out it didn't make sense.

The first book is just about word for word of the movie, but after reading all the HP books it made the movies, especially the last one, 100 times better.

Yea, they are getting darker and darker. Think of it like WW2 and the Nazi's coming. I remember when there was a lot of negative press about HP and it teaching kids witchcraft and all that hubbub and it was as evil as dungeons and dragons. Hell its not about that, if I were a stick in the mud moral righteous parent, I would be more upset that its teaching kids to drop out of school and join the army.

Also remember It took what 8-9 years or so for all the books to come out and it goes from basically 6th grade to 12th grade? There is a huge difference between a 6th grader and a senior in high school.