I like the darker colors, they make her stand out so much more

@Background Pone #0000  
Nobody debates those cases because we literally saw them change color on screen. They had a more in story reason for changing color too.

You know, I find this color change debate really odd when nobody questions stuff like mane 6 desaturation when they were discorded and/or the Yakkity Sax incident.
 
Then again, that’s it’s own can of worms to the issue of the colors being noticed in-universe, at least by Discord?

@mjangelvortex
 
@Gian Song Yim
 
 
Ohh well. It’s still sad for me. It makes me feel as bad as the time I told to my parents I wanted my room to have one different for each wall in my room (orange, green, purple and blue). They denied the request. Also, most of the colors I got offered where not very shiny. Guess I do have a knack for standing out when it comes to colors, which might explain why I like RD’s mane.

@mjangelvortex
 
Same.
 
My problem with Sunset’s hair color from 1st two movies is the same as her current outfit.  
The colors are clashing everywhere and it gets overwhelmed if looking at it for too long.  
Orange clothing? Together with her cutie mark and her geode?  
It’s just too much.  
But I’m already used to her clothing by now.  
The saturated hair color tho?  
It uses an ugly shade of yellow that doesn’t go well with everything else.  
And like you said, it really made her stood out like a sore thumb.

@Background Pony #B008  
That’s the reason Lauren Faust gave to explain the design change but even then I think she made that explanation after leaving the show when one fan asked why she looked different.
 
@Twi_Clown  
They could have thought that Sunset’s colors were way too loud compared to the rest of the Mane 6 to the point she kind of stood out like a sore thumb in group shots with them so they opted for softer and more pastel colors so she could fit in more with them (both metaphorically and literally). I honestly found her older colors to be a bit too bright and prefer her with the more pastel colors. That’s just me making a guess though.

@mjangelvortex
 
“Or Luna getting an all new design all together.”
 
Well, I cannot discuss that.
 
Still, S1 Luna looked small an adorable, whereas actual Lna looks bigger and bolder, so I don’t see why Sunset’s colors represent good or bad here. She just looks shinier in the past and that’s it. Keep on mind it wasn’t just hte first movie, but in rainbow rocks as well when Sunset still had the shiny colors, and to be fair the facial expressions were more than enought to show us that Sunset wasn’t evil, so the change of palette feels a bit unnecesary.

@mjangelvortex  
I always thought Luna looked the way she did after defeated because she was de-powered.

@Background Pony #B008  
Or Luna getting an all new design all together.
 
@semerl  
Kinda an extreme reaction.
 
@Evil Emperor Proteus  
Some creators use color for certain characters to show their alignment. Quite a bit of villians wear red, green, black, or purple clothing because of this.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Pastel.

@Background Pony #B008  

 

@Background Pony #B008
 
Man, that’s just weird.

@Goddess Erosia  
For example?… (Fluttershy)
 
 
But this is different, post-Rainbow Rocks except the non-musical Summertime shorts… Sunset’s hair has remained this color all throughout.
 
>Frames in different releases
 
Sometime it also depends on the video source, maybe you got certain not-so-good TV rips, you have Sunset’s hair looking brown-reddish (like the Polish airings of Dance Magic to Mirror Magic) or Rainbow Dash’s rainbow hair has dark or light green hair. And pretty much everything else is darkened due to broadcast standards there.
 
Asides from Mirror Magic with corrupted yellow colors across the home media releases. Her hair color remains intact.  
This is not a cover-up or any kind. You meant to say her change in magic color from cyan to red is incompetent as well?  
>>1646587p (merged)  

 
Her change is deliberate and they mean it to reflect her redemption. When Sunset flashback to her past in Forgotten Friendship, the old color (which resembles her past) is still there.

@Background Pony #B008  
Did you just completely ignore what I said?
 
I know the hearsay part about the animation team isn’t reliable but there’s PLENTY of images of people comparing Fluttershy’s inconsistent colors too. It’s not just sunset. I honestly do feel like this is a lie to cover up incompetence or else they happen to be doing both things. There are also screenshots of other things like certain backgrounds that have slightly different colors on this site. It really does seem like at least somewhere along the way there is some kind of error. I’ve seen plenty of images of people comparing the FRAMES between different releases of the films that show noticeable differences. Character redesigns or not, there are indeed inconsistencies.

@AmrasFelagund  
Non-musical Summertime shorts were produced Boulder Media and they don’t have all the assets like DHX. They reuse her first one instead. Just like the humane six didn’t wear their geodes in those shorts either.  
Boulder Media simply don’t have the assets for some reasons…
 
 
@Goddess Erosia  
It’s not a joke or a lie.  
This is said along with her new outfit. They also updated her outfit to “cool” her down a bit after Rainbow  
Rocks.
 
@semerl  
How is this inconsistent?  
They gave the reason to desaturate her hair to reflect her reformation.  
As to her previous hairstyle coming back in the non-muscial Summertime shorts? I already explained above.
 
I feel y’all just either don’t care to look up on these things or just accuse the staff on being inconsistent for the sake of it.  
Character redesign happens all the time.
 
Sunset has curly hair now for example.
 
She will have a new one-off hairstyle The Other Side.  

Excuses for these kinds of inconsistencies are one of my reasons for wanting thousands dead.

@Goddess Erosia  
Which would explain why some post-Friendship Games shorts featured Sunset not just in her EqG and Rainbow Rocks attire, but also with her original hair color saturation.  
Either that or  

Honestly this sounds more like a joke or a lie. There’s already a lot of evidence that it’s just a mix up between different studios…
 
She’s not the only thing in the DVDs, Netflix and TV-airings that is inconsistent between all three forms - not to mention some REGIONAL releases also have different colors. Fluttershy is also screwed up just as often.
 
I vaguely remember someone who claimed to be familiar with the animation software they use or something along the lines and they made the argument that a certain range of colors are easily lost in translation between different computers unless a very specific amount of attention is paid to the setup of different animator’s computers.

The more you know…

Are you saying she dyed her hair red and yellow to bring out her bad girl image?!

@Evil Emperor Proteus
 
 
@Background Pony #ED11  

What do colors have to do with being good or bad?

Desaturating was a good call, but they desaturated it a bit too much. Something more in-between the 2 would have been better.  
The original saturation was too much so, made the face and eye color get overwhelmed.

@Thrond  
I don’t think that is that, it’s more that the colors just would make you remember when she was still mean  
It’s just the same situation as Starlight, her old manestyle didn’t even looked “evil” but it resembled what she was

Well, okay. Except, wait, that doesn’t make sense. Good people are less colourful?