Soz this will be long.
Maybe he did die in the blast. Maybe what Alfred saw was what he had wished to see in the time Bruce had done his disappearing act, Bruce Wayne with a woman and happy.
The more I think about it the more I think it's no different to Inception. Michael Caine in both at the ambiguous end.
You're overthinking.
Just because Nolan did Inception doesn't mean all of his films are going to have an Inception type ending. He likes twists, yes, but he also likes letting you piece together the bits. You know there were people thought Dent wasn't dead at the end of TDK? There are probably people saying Bane survived being shot right now lol. The ambiguity of Inception was an integral part of the plot due to the dreams/levels of dreams. Batman is Batman. You might as well say Alfred is a bored butler who hallucinated the whole trilogy.
Wayne fixes the autopilot (found out after the fact) - this provides him with a way to escape well before he's even taken the Bat out to sea - the editing is done in such a way that you're led to think he's still on it with a short time remaining, as the audience at that point have
no idea he has this ace up the sleeve. This has been done in just about every 'did they make it?!' moment in film ever. He didn't need to leap into the icy sea when it was miles out - he has ample opportunity to escape between leaving Gordon/Fox/Kyle and Blake seeing the Bat go out to sea.
He has plenty of time in the aftermath of the explosion and the clean up to leave the 'passing the torch' equipment in his will to Blake and restore the bat signal (smashed all through the film), as well as grabbing his mum's pearls; this little montage at the end means we're given after the fact knowledge that when he took off with the bomb, he had the chance to disappear once and for all without people looking for him.
Gotham will think Batman is dead, having died a legend, but like all legends, he'll endure because if Gotham ever needs Batman, there is one waiting.
Bruce Wayne's 'death' serves two purposes - one, anyone interested in Wayne for the wrong reasons... no point, he's dead. Two, it's symbolic for Wayne's character - he can live a normal life without the act he had to play in public and the weight/guilt he carried over the death of his parents and Rachel, he's a new man.
The fresh start plot-thread for Selena Kyle is important because her desire throughout the film is to do what Wayne won't allow himself to do - start anew. The reason Catwoman and Batman always hooked up in the comics/got married/had kids etc is because she's the only woman in his life that 'got' him as both the bat and the man. How much influence this is supposed to have on him isn't explicitly shown but by the final act we've had two characters who care about him and come to care about him imploring him to hang up the pointy ears before he ends up dead, with one as the love interest who he himself entrusts with the means to (in a much more simple fashion) wipe her own slate. I also guess this is how he finds her in the aftermath since she has the USB key and it wouldn't be a stretch to say he tagged it.
Finding Alfred... he stated that he went to a specific cafe in Florence the same time every year (he even names it). Easy for Wayne, he's still a genius even if he has no knee cartiledge! It'd be a doddle to find Alfred (how easy did he find that Chinese dude in Hong Kong in TDK). He gave Alfred what he wanted to see, both to let the poor bugger know he was alive, lest he sink into perpetual depression and to show Alfred's emo moment wasn't in vain - it took the usual Hollywood saving the day before he acted on it though, but in the end he embraced life instead of chasing death.
Also, Alfred never at any point saw Kyle involved with Wayne romantically, so it wouldn't make any sense seeing her with him at the cafe if he was seeing things, he only knew her as a thief. Worth noting in that Florence shot Kyle is wearing Martha Wayne's necklace - no small gesture on Bruce's part both because of him hiding it away due to his guilt (and subsequent symbolism of releasing it), and passing on family heirlooms to partners typically being a sign of a serious committed relationship etc.
Comicbook Wayne is never allowed to transcend his personal demons/the cape because Batman needs to keep going, new stories, new outfits, new villians. Nolan, having a complete self-contained Batman story in three films had the luxury of giving Wayne an ending he deserves, but never normally gets. I don't see why it's hard to believe what's laid out quite satisfyingly to us at the end.
Fox knows he lied about the autopilot when he flew off w/the bomb - he's smart enough to put 2+2 to know Bruce has checked out cleverly
Gordon knows because he fiinds the bat signal restored post-explosion
Alfred knows because he physically sees him
Kyle knows because Wayne is now baking her Hovis on a daily basis
Blake doesn't know, but only knew him for a brief time anyway - of course Fox could tell him if he wanted to (if they worked together) but we're entering fanfic speculation territory here.
Few conflicting reports around this. I guess we'll need to wait til after Superman to see what he does.
It wouldn't be a case of trying to "bodge a 4th film together out of the final minutes of this one" though. I mean, the Blake character was pretty much the lynchpin of this entire film, and we got an origin story which was essential all Robin in everything but tights and fancy gadgets. It'd be easy to reboot it in an new direction with John Blake as Batman in some capacity.
I doubt they'll do it, mind you. It's strange to think that the way it ends sets it up for another installment only to think that it'll probably never happen.
I believe WB hyped it up a while ago and Nolan has recently shot it down.
Good storytelling leaves you wanting more. What Nolan did is show that within his universe, Wayne has gone through the full character cycle, and that's it, his work is done, he can get a tan, have batcat babies and invent safe nuclear fusion reactors, but it's important for the themes set up in the film that the legend of Batman, the symbol, be immortalised, cemented as legend. What he did with Blake was show that the legend was being preserved, the torch passed. I didn't really feel it was done in a way to say 'go on, make a sequel'. What the audience needed to see was that Gotham City will always have a Batman if he's needed ("Batman can be anybody"), whilst giving Bruce Wayne the peace and closure he deserved.
In V for Vendetta, when the same thing happens at the end, nobody clamours for a sequel because it's a self-contained story and not a serial ongoing thing like Batman always has been. One of the important things in the story is Gotham itself - in the first film it's corrupt, by the third in making it safe they've gonne too far (Patriot Act/Dent Act parrallels etc, the 99% etc), and when it's all over the suggestion is Gotham has found a balance - Batman's final act gives them the chance to also start again, much like Bruce himself can start again, but they no longer need each other.
It cheapens the conclusion (for me) if we go straight back into 'some evil dude messes up Gotham again straight away and we need Batman, who isn't Bruce Wayne and doesn't have 1337 ninja skills to save the day.' Let it be I say. We have enough to play with it in our imaginations, at least.
I think the problem is that Nolan did such a good job, you can't but feel that whatever someone else comes up with is going to be inferior, so it's 'safe' to want more of the same, when for Nolan he's finished with it as he's told the story of Bruce Wayne and his internal/external struggle from start to finish. Bruce Wayne has more or less always been Batman (with the odd change for one-offs), so if you'r rebooting then I don't see why they'd want to go back to Nolan's universe, and I don't think they should really.
and few 