Blue Raptor: The Velociraptor Owen Grady Trained

Blue is a Velociraptor, one of a small pack of raptors that Owen Grady trains on Isla Nublar in Jurassic World (2015). Owen is a former Navy animal behaviorist, and the film opens twenty-two years after the original disaster, with a full dinosaur theme park open and busy. The raptors are the animals in that park nobody can fully relax around, and Blue is the one the saga keeps returning to.

The raptors in Jurassic Park (1993), directed by Steven Spielberg, are a different set of animals, the pack that hunts the survivors through the visitor center. Blue first appears in the 2015 film, so the character belongs to the Jurassic World era of the saga. Owen Grady is the human anchor for the pack, and Blue is the animal he is most tied to.

The pack matters to the plot early, because security chief Vic Hoskins sees Owen's raptors as a way to turn dinosaurs into military assets. That tension, between a trainer who treats the animals as something close to partners and a man who sees weapons, frames the position Blue is in from the start.

Blue's closest bond is with Owen Grady, the trainer who works with the pack in Jurassic World (2015) and who is pulled back to find Blue in Fallen Kingdom. The relationship runs through Owen, and it is the reason Blue's survival matters to the plot rather than being a footnote.

Claire Dearing. Claire is the one who brings Owen back to track Blue in Fallen Kingdom, as part of the rescue plan, so she links Blue to the rest of the human cast. See Claire Dearing for her side of the story.

Zia Rodriguez. Zia helps save Blue with a transfusion after the mercenaries shoot the raptor. It is a small act in a crowded film, and it is the reason Blue is alive for the fight at the Lockwood estate.

Beta and Maisie. Beta is the young offspring that arrives with Blue in Dominion, and Maisie Lockwood is the teenager who names the animal. The kidnapping of both Maisie and Beta ties them together in the plot.

The old Tyrannosaurus rex. In Jurassic World (2015), Blue helps the old Tyrannosaurus rex fight the Indominus rex after Claire frees the larger animal.

The hybrids. Blue's two hybrid opponents are the Indominus rex, which carries raptor DNA, and the Indoraptor, a new hybrid introduced in Fallen Kingdom. Blue fights the Indominus alongside the Tyrannosaurus, then faces the Indoraptor alone in the mansion, where it dies on a skull display.

In my opinion, Blue's best moment is still the lagoon fight in Jurassic World (2015), when the raptor joins the old Tyrannosaurus rex against the Indominus. It could be argued that the Mosasaurus gets the showpiece finish, but the scene works because a raptor the Indominus had turned against the humans ends up fighting on their side.

The second pick is the skull display fight in Fallen Kingdom. Blue against the Indoraptor is a clean duel between the natural raptor and the lab made one, and the way the hybrid dies, on a skull display, is exactly the kind of grim joke the series does well. Perhaps the transfusion earlier in the film deserves a mention too, since it is the reason the duel can happen at all.

The last pick is Blue's return in Dominion with Beta in tow. It is not an action beat, but it answers the question the previous film left hanging, which is whether the last raptor stays the last. That being said, I would still rate the 2015 fight above everything else, because it is the clearest picture of why this animal became the face of the raptors.