When troubled teen takes control of a crashed alien craft, he decides to fly it to London to prevent his girlfriend from cheating on him. With a secret government agency and a massing alien army in hot pursuit, he must choose between saving his relationship and saving the world.

Yes, I see your point. Dilemmas, dilemmas, dilemmas...

When a delinquent teen takes control of a crashed Alien craft he must choose between saving his girlfriend from a suspicious government agency and stopping an advancing alien host hell bent on destroying the world.

?

By way of comparison, in "The Matrix Reloaded" Nemo is confronted with the dilemma of either saving the residents of Zion or saving Trinity -- but seemingly, he can't save both.

It's a true dilemma because Trinity is one special gal, fearless, loyal, cunning. She's been central to Nemo's realization of his potential, his destiny. In every possible way, she's his soul-mate.

In contrast, what's the girl in London ever done for the protagonist to make him a better person, to inspire and help him to realize his potential, his destiny?

Correction: no-brainer.

"he must choose between saving his relationship and saving the world"

It's always good to put the protagonist in the crossfire of a dilemma but as written his choice seems like a no-brainel. What's so special about a girl who's about to cheat on him that he has to think longer than a New York nanosecond what to do? Save the world -- dump the girl.

IOW: it doesn't seem to be a real dilemma. A real dilemma has two choices both equally desirable and/or necessary -- but the character can only choose one at the price of forfeiting the other.

Yes, juggling is a good word. Not balls though, just the gentle art of distraction from what I should be doing, which is working on the screenplay that's causing me problems... I also just recently discovered this site, which I think is awesome, and might have gotten a tad excited about it.. :)

And yes -- the GF is the B story that complicates the A; causally placing the suspicion of the protag very early on, and definitely before the discovery of the craft. There would two phone conversations between Protag and GF (she's in London, he's East Coast USA) -- the first arousing the Protag's suspicions before the discovery of the craft, and the second confirming his suspicions, which would take place after...

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback, you've been pretty generous already on a few occasions.

Got a lot of balls juggling in the air at once for a logline. Something has to fall by the wayside.

Here's my questIon: what's the cause-and-effect link between the teen taking control of the alien aircraft and his girlfriend cheating on him? How does one lead to the other?

If it doesn't causally, then isn't it more of a "B" story issue that complicates the "A" story in the 2nd and 3rd acts?

In other words, what does the inciting incident (discovery of the alien craft) trigger: the girlfriend cheating on him? Or the usual-nefarious suspects, the government and aliens, in hot pursuit?