Owen Grady: Jurassic World's Raptor Trainer

Owen Grady is a former Navy animal behaviorist who trains a small pack of Velociraptors on Isla Nublar in Jurassic World 2015, directed by Colin Trevorrow. The character is credited as Owen in that film and as Owen Grady in the two sequels, and Chris Pratt plays him each time.

He is a hands-on figure compared with the experts who tour the park in Jurassic Park 1993: paleontologist Alan Grant, paleobotanist Ellie Sattler and chaos theorist Ian Malcolm. Owen works with the animals directly, training the raptors on the island.

A few common searches have simple answers. Owen Grady is the character's full name, so there is no separate real name, and the actor behind him is Chris Pratt. He is described as a former Navy animal behaviorist, not a Navy SEAL. If you want the wider ensemble, the jurassic park characters index covers the rest.

The two relationships that define Owen are with Claire Dearing and with the raptor Blue, and a third, with Maisie Lockwood, arrives in the later films.

Owen and Claire Dearing begin as a mismatch: she runs the park, and he is the animal handler she asks to inspect the Indominus paddock. By the end of Jurassic World (2015) they decide to stay together. Do Claire and Owen get married? Dominion shows them as a couple raising a child, and no wedding is reported in any of the three plots.

His bond with Blue is the emotional core of the series. Claire recruits him in Fallen Kingdom specifically to find the last raptor, and Blue fights the Indoraptor to protect the survivors. In Dominion, Blue turns up with a young offspring that Maisie names Beta, and Owen is the one who recovers it.

Maisie Lockwood is the child the couple protects, and Dominion shows Owen and Claire living as a family with her. Vic Hoskins is the opposing figure in the first film, since he wants to turn the raptors into weapons. Kayla Watts is a later ally who shares the survival stretch in Dominion.

In my opinion, Owen is at his best when the film lets him be a trainer rather than an action hero, and the three moments below are the ones I would point a newcomer to.

The first is the paddock inspection in Jurassic World (2015). Owen warns that the Indominus is dangerously intelligent, and the film then proves him right when the hybrid tricks its handlers. It is the cleanest example of the franchise doing what the original did, with a character who understands the animal being ignored by the people who built it.

The second is the raptor pack turning in the same film. Hearing that the Indominus carries raptor DNA and has taken control of the pack lands harder because Owen has spent the first half showing us the bond he thinks is working. Blue's later choice to fight alongside the humans pays that off.

The third is the escape from Isla Nublar in Fallen Kingdom. Mercenaries shoot Blue and leave the heroes behind as the eruption starts, and Owen, Claire and Franklin sneak onto the cargo ship. It could be argued that the sequel is uneven, but this stretch gives Owen the clearest stakes of the trilogy: he is there for Blue, and the film never lets him forget it.