@Amethyst_Crystal  
Not just the characters, everything are muted/darkened in Polish releases of the specials and it’s the version most fans watch first hand…

@Background Pony #32E0  
To elaborate on this, there was a discussion about the color desaturation error on this post too,  
someone mentioned that other characters seemed to suffer from it too.

@Vinyl Fluff  

 
DF have never tempted with the masters. International broadcast on the other hand…
 
@Zharkaer  

 
DF’s airing is indeed the accurate one.  
@Amethyst_Crystal  

@Background Pony #32E0  

 
I think you misunderstand. I wasn’t saying she was desat’d just for FG. But that they desat’d her starting with it. According to them, directly from the director’s audio track, because she was “no longer a villain.” So her later appearances are desaturated as well.
 
And yes, I’m aware all of the characters are more heavily saturated as ponies. They lighted their colors to reduce how odd multi-hued non-human skin tones would look.

@Vinyl Fluff  

 
Rewatching FG, her hair colors (from then till present days) remain the same.  
P.S. pony skin colors are more saturated than EGs.  

@Gian Song Yim  

 
I’d say they’ve either changed their minds and put her colors back to normal, or her art on the site was never changed like it was in the movies.

@Vinyl Fluff  
Her updated design/coloration from official site.  
DF/U.S. release is the accurate one.  

@Vinyl Fluff  
It’s not…when you compare to the other 2 specials, yeah they desaturated her hair colors but NOT water down.

@Amethyst_Crystal  

 
It matches the intentionally desaturated look they gave Sunset in Friendship Games. According to the commentary track, they desaturated her colors because she “was no longer a villain”, which doesn’t make sense to me as there was nothing villiany about her colors to begin with. It wasn’t like she was dark purple and black or whatever.
 
So it’s possible that the one on the right is the correct colors, while the one in the middle was the broadcaster thinking it was a color error and turning the saturation up.

@Gian Song Yim  
Wow, the digital release version actually looks even worse than the original teletoon broadcast,  
slightly more desaturated of color.

@ArrJaySketch  

 

Yeah no…  

@AmrasFelagund  
>>473386t (deleted)

@Vinyl Fluff  
And she wasn’t even a “bad guy” in Rainbow Rocks, either. So all in all, it just fits into my personal belief that Sunset Shimmer has been egregiously mishandled in the direction they’ve taken her after the first EqG. Based on her two minutes of pony screentime in the first EqG, she seemed quite adept at magic even with apparently having spent thirty moons in a magicless world, not to mention acting as a coordinated quadruped. From what we have seen since, she has had trouble remembering that ponies walk on all fours and that she has a HORN to do magic with.
 
Before Legends of Everfree, I had this idea that her fading colors were a result of her “losing herself” from being in the wrong dimension for too long, and that after Friendship Games she’d be horrified to find herself losing her good memories of Equestria, at the cost of being wrapped up in this mundane life as she loses her spark and her “much-ness”. (I had Mystery Skulls’s Freaking Out in my head about it for some reason.) And then in a desperate move, she bolts through the crumbling portal back into Equestria just as the mirror on the other side cracks, her color and stronger sense of self coming rushing back as Twilight bursts in, astonished and pleased to see her again.
 
…I’m a mite bit salty about EqG, in case it couldn’t be told.

Not enough sunscreen, Shimmer

@thps48 
Yup!

The official airdate is tomorrow, right? :3

It’ll be interesting to see how DiscFam and iTunes compare. I noticed that Treehouse was bad about the episodes’ coloring, and I’m wondering if TeleToon has the same problem.

I don’t understand the “We desaturated her a bit since she’s no longer a bad guy” on LoE’s director’s commentary either. I mean if you want to get her out of the leather jacket and boots that’s one thing. But changing her colors? What?
 
We don’t see Discord, Trixie, or Starlight suddenly getting more-muted colors.

@Masem
 
I did mean in-universe, yes. Meta-wise there was still no need to change it. The outfit change I can live with, but the hair color change is just strange. What, are bright colors somehow more evil than muted ones?

@DrakeyC  
I’d have to dig but I’m pretty confident Ishi or the like said they felt they needed to mute her colors post-redemption along with the outfit change. This was out around the release of the three post-RR shorts, with My Past is Not Today being the one that triggered the question.
 
In universe, yes, nada said.

@The Angry Dango of Doom
 
No, the show color scheme is the same as always. They just arbitrarily changed Sunset’s hair after Rainbow Rocks and made no mention of it.

I like both TBH

@DrakeyC  
Jesus Christ I get what you mean…  
Did they change color schemes or something in the show? I don’t care to watch any more

I got used to the hair color change for her human form, but her pony form really highlights how much better the old color scheme is. That vibrant orange coat contrasted with the desaturated red and yellow mane doesn’t work, either the coat needs to be made more pale or the mane needs to be brightened up.
 
A further problem is that Sunset’s color scheme is now an inversion of the usual aesthetic. The pony characters usually, not always but usually, have a vibrant and striking mane color with a subdued coat color. Applejack is really the only mane character to defy this, otherwise we have pale yellow with bright pink, pale lavender with deep purple and pink, pale blue with a shock of rainbow colors, and so forth. The humans maintain this aesthetic with even more subdued skin tones but the same colors for the hair. Sunset though has a bright orange coat with pale mane colors, thus she doesn’t look right.