User:Frungi/Star Trek Into Darkness capitalization

There has been much debate over whether the word “Into” in the title of Star Trek Into Darkness should be capitalized. This is my attempt to gather all of the arguments for and against the capital “I” in one place, in hopes that it will mitigate the endless repetition of those same arguments. I’ve attempted to represent all arguments, and to avoid repeating arguments as counterarguments. If anyone feels that I represented an (counter)argument from your side unfairly, I sincerely apologize, and feel free to edit it.

Subtitle

The title may have an unpunctuated subtitle, meant to be read as “Star Trek: Into Darkness”.

For

• In the logo and posters, the franchise name is displayed distinctly differently from “Into Darkness”.
• The trailer displays “Into Darkness” on its own before the franchise name.
• Every single Star Trek movie up until the reboot has had a subtitle.
• The title of Star Trek Nemesis has no colon, but the article Star Trek: Nemesis does because it’s a subtitle. The same should go for this.
• Some sources include punctuation.
• The movie has been referred to as simply Into Darkness, and no common short name has ever begun with a mid-title preposition.
• The creator stated that this movie (the sequel) would have a subtitle.

Counterarguments

• None of this evidence is absolute proof. It’s all implication and inference.
• The creator made that statement before the movie had an official title. He may have changed his mind.
• The franchise just had a reboot, so it doesn’t matter what previous movies did—not even with their continuity, let alone titles.

Against

• If it were a subtitle, there would be punctuation.
• As there is no definitive, unequivocal, inarguable proof that it’s a subtitle, we should not make that call ourselves. We should presume that it’s one unbroken title.
• We don’t know either way, so we shouldn’t draw conclusions beyond the words and (lack of) punctuation given.
• An author-sourced synopsis uses the unpunctuated title in a sentence: “[…] takes Star Trek Into Darkness,” demonstrating flow-though sentence use, disproving necessity of a title/subtitle interpretation.

Counterarguments

• But there is aesthetic proof.
• The lack of punctuation is a stylistic choice. We should respect it.
• The lack of punctuation is a stylistic choice. We should add a colon.
• The fact that they cleverly worked the title into a sentence in a piece of promotional copy proves nothing.

Grammar

Appealing to grammatical sensibilities.

For

• “Into” is a compound preposition and, per the MOS, compound prepositions should be capitalized.
• The official materials unwaveringly use a capital I.
• The producers made a clear grammatical choice to capitalize the word, whatever their reason. We should respect that.
• Every single source capitalizes it. There is no source which does not capitalize it.
• The policy WP:COMMONNAME overrides an MOS guideline.
• If “Trek” is a verb, “Trek Into” becomes a verb phrase and “Trek Into Darkness” becomes a noun phrase. This leaves “Star” as an adjective modifying the noun phrase “Trek Into Darkness”. “Into” should then be capitalized as part of a phrasal verb.
• Into is a directional spatial preposition which must be coupled with a motion verb, giving credence to the "‘Trek’ is a verb" argument.

Counterarguments

• Our own style overrides the choices of the producers and everyone who follows suit.
• That’s not a phrasal verb.

Against

• Most English style guides (including Wikipedia’s) say that, in titles, prepositions (especially short ones) should be lowercase.
• The title may describe a space journey into the black, similar to Journey into Darkness.

Counterarguments

• In titles, “Star Trek” has never been used in that way, or as anything but a franchise title.

General

Often used to supplement the above arguments.

For/Against

• That’s original research.
• Use common sense.
• You’re being unreasonable or stubborn.
• You misunderstood my argument. Let me repeat it. Again.

Counterarguments

Same.

No you.