For me it was even earlier, when they casually re-animated a 2000-year-old mummified head with what appeared to be a Taser, then promptly forgot they had that technology for the rest of the film.
That's the thing about this movie, they do things like make first contact with the only alien life mankind has ever met or reanimate a centuries old alien head and each event is about as monumental as reading the morning paper.
