4. Why Bruce Wayne Retired From Gotham's Social Life
For everyone who loves comics, it's quite evident that The Dark Knight Rises was heavily inspired by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. In both of them Bruce Wayne retired from being Batman and after he realizes he's had enough he decided to get back in the game. The major difference comes from the fact that in the comic Bruce only lets go his secret identity. In the end that is the most logical action to take in a situation like that. Especially if he didn't want anyone to find out who he really was, and while in the film is explained (sort of) in that Bruce has no longer interest in the outside world because he felt he lost everything when Rachel died, this idea isn't fully explored. You'd expect to see a bigger impact not only on how the city now hates him for crimes he didn't commit and for the death of the love of his life, but also after the big reveal that Alfred burned Rachel's letter. All those things (especially the latter) should've had a big impact on Bruce's decisions and development throughout the movie, yet we only see a very basic response to all of them. It would've been much more interesting to see how all those things affected him, and what role they played in his downfall. And while we're at it...