I completely agree with the OP. I never saw the original until just before the newer version and found them to be equally boring. So it may not surprise anyone that I also found 2001 to be boring when I saw it at a drive-in theater during its original run. And still find it that way now. I am not really a fan of big action, but these movies seem to be asleep themselves.

i didn't think that final montage was controversial, just arrogant. To me, it was the director trying to tell us that his movie should be considered a classic, like many of those he included in the montage. For me it put a This Is Not A Great Movie exclamation mark on the proceedings. Of course, we already knew the director thought he had made a classic when we saw that it was going to run over 3 hours. Maybe it would have been better if he had eliminated half the movie....maybe.