This bugged me right the way through Jurassic World.
Before Chris Pratt as Owen the velociraptor trainer is introduced, we're primed to expect a tough, world-class expert on animal psychology with this dialogue (adapted from this transcript):
MASRANI: So the paddock is quite safe, then?
CLAIRE: (nods) We have the best structural engineers in the world.
MASRANI: Yeah, so did Hammond.
Claire doesn't respond
MASRANI: There's an American Navy man here. Part of a research program one of my companies is running. Owen Grady.
CLAIRE: I know who he is.
MASRANI: His animals often try to escape. They're smart. He has to be smarter.
What I couldn't make sense of is - what does being an "American Navy man" have to do with outsmarting animals and training dinosaurs?
In the context of the conversation, making the fact he's a "Navy man" the very first piece of information shared feels like an appeal to authority - an implied "of course you should defer to his superior expertise on dinosaur psychology, he's US Navy".
I don't understand how being a Navy man establishes his credibility as a dinosaur trainer? Why the Navy?
(in contrast, for example, with the original Jurassic Park, where their raptor expert's credibility was established by introducing him as a ranger / game hunter, with many years' experience tracking, monitoring and hunting dangerous wildlife)
What am I missing?
The closest I can find to an answer online is this from the wiki:
During his time in the Navy he trained dolphins (presumably under the United States Navy Marine Mammal Program)
...which, if true, bridges the gap slightly, but I don't remember any mention of anything like this in the film, and the word "dolphin" doesn't appear in the above linked transcript of the first part of the film.
Even if the wiki is accurate here, I don't understand how the viewer is expected to make that link from an exposition / character development point of view. Especially in a world where dinosaurs had been around so long as to be passè - would there not be actual specialists whose whole careers had been focused on training dinosaurs, rather than needing to rely on moonlighting navy people who might be ex-dolphin trainers?
What am I missing?